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.