carl sagan

Pale Blue Dot

Pale Blue Dot

“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there–on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

“The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

“Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

“The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

“It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”

– Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot

Happy New Year, everyone.

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Question Authority

If we can’t think for ourselves, if we’re unwilling to question authority, then we’re just putty in the hands of those in power. But if the citizens are educated and form their own opinions, then those in power will work for us.

Carl Sagan, The Demon Haunted World

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Now that the new Cosmos series is out and in the world, it’s got me thinking about how the original Cosmos book changed my life.

I was too young for the original TV series, so the book is all I had. Later, I purchased the PBS series on VHS, and watched it through, but I did that as an adult – after the book made its impact.

The book was my cornerstone. And Carl Sagan’s voice spoke to me in ways no other author had. It taught me, at a fairly young age, to think big. Like, cosmos big.

Sagan taught me that there’s a number with 100 zeros called a googol. And that a one with a googol zeros after it was a googolplex.

He taught me what the fourth dimension meant in a fundamentally easy-to-understand way.

The book showed me what the surface of Mars looked like. A view from another planet. In a book. And it looked a little bit like home. Amazing.

Through Sagan’s stories, I learned that the ancients were figuring out that the Earth was round, well before Christopher Columbus, and that the stuff of life (not life, but the raw materials) could be made by zapping soup with lightening bolts. How cool is that?

The book was a journey through space and time, and it had a profound affect on me. I went on to read all of Sagan’s books, appreciate his fiction, and watch the original Cosmos series.

The other Sagan book that changed my life was The Demon Haunted World, which was more about myth debunking and critical thinking. I read that one as a freshman in college, and it couldn’t have come at a better time in my life.

Fast forward to now: I’m so grateful that Neil deGrasse Tyson has rebooted the series.

Tyson has all the makings of the “new Sagan.” His famous speech, above, moves me to tears just as well as anything Sagan ever said. His passion for science, and space, and education, and a space program, is infectious. Tyson makes for a good space advocate.

He makes for a good Cosmos host, too.

The final segment of the first episode, with Tyson remembering how he met Carl Sagan, was a tear-jerker. Call me sentimental, but seeing Sagan on the old Cosmos series and interacting with children on TV touched on something very deep for me. This man, who has taught me so much, and served as a sort of guide through the important idea-forming years of my life, was mortal and flawed, and has been dead for almost 20 years. But the impact he made was huge – asteroid-crater huge.

The segment also offered an important point, says Phil Plait:

It humanizes scientists and shows science as a human endeavor. It is the most human of endeavors, in fact. It is our imagination, our urge to explore, our desire to discover, and our unquenchable need to find things out.

We’re made of starstuff, sure. But presenting science as an emotional, human, and spiritual endeavor was one of Carl Sagan’s goals in the Cosmos series and book.

And that’s the idea that changed my life. Science is lofty, yes, but when you bring it down to earth and say what it really means to all of us – that the universe is a big place, and even though we’re tiny we can make meaning out of it all – it makes an impact.

So thanks, Carl. And thanks, Neil. I’m hopeful that you change someone else’s life through this new Cosmos series.

Photo courtesy NASA.

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Happy New Year

A New Year’s message, as I do every year, from Dr. Carl Sagan:

Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

Have a safe and happy new year, all.

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Things I Like: Books

Things I Like: Books

When I bought my first iPod, it opened me up to an idea: instead of carrying stacks of CDs in the car with me on road trips, with an iPod I could carry something the size of a pack of cards and have all of my music with me.

No more fishing for CDs, so more jewel cases slipping between the seats – everything about it was better.

The same thinking has not occurred to me with books, however. Maybe it’s that I don’t have a dedicated e-reader, so I don’t know what I’m missing. But I haven’t felt compelled to buy an e-reader, either.

So I still buy books. Good ol’ fashioned bound, paper, heavy books.

My favorites range all over the place: Carl Sagan takes the cake, of course, but also John Irving, a few political biographies, and a wide range of fiction and non-fiction. I like the heft of books, being able to open one anywhere and continuing where I left off. The smell of an old bookstore, the feel of the paper, my notes scribbled in the margins.

Some of that you can replicate with e-books. But not everything.

It’s not just books. It’s everything involved with books: libraries, book stores, “free books” carts in the classroom hallways. There’s a lot of infrastructure around books, and I like all that, too.

I understand that a lot of it is not necessary. Libraries are already evolving into “media centers.” Book stores are having a helluva time. Just as we don’t read scrolls anymore, the days of the book may be limited.

Unlike when we upgrade our video media, however, you can always pick up a book. It always works. It’s never obsolete or incompatible.

Maybe someday I’ll grab an e-reader and switch full-bore. Maybe. In the meantime, though, I’ll keep reading Dr. Sagan as I always have.

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