Carl Edward Sagan, 1934 - 1996
NASA/JPL photo, 1980
Born: 9 November 1934, Brooklyn, New York
Died: 20 December 1996, Seattle, Washington
Bort to a Russian immigrant textile worker, the family moved to Rahway, New Jersey where Carl graduated from Rahway High School in 1951. Unable to learn about the stars from his family, his mother got him a library card at age five. He was similarly inspired by visiting the 1939 World's Fair at about the same time and at age six or seven he was going to the American Museum of Natural History, enjoying the planetarium and displays of dinosaurs and space objects. He attended the University of Chicago where he was a member of the Ryerson Astronomical Society and earned his B.A., B.S., M.S. in physics, and Ph.D. in astronomy and astrophysics (1954, 1955, 1956, and 1960).He was a Miller Fellow at the University of California at Berkeley for two years, then worked at the Smithsonian Observatory and lectured at Harvard from 1962 to 1968. He moved to Cornell University, becoming a full professor in 1971, and associate director of the Center for Radio Physics and Space Research there from 1972 to 1981, and taught a course on critical thinking at Cornell until his death.
Sagan was an advisor to NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for many years, he was responsible for the plaques on the Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft that have now left the solar system, designed to reveal something about mankind to some spacefaring race thousands of years from now, should there be any. He correctly predicted the surface temperature of Venus, that there were liquid seas on Saturn's moon Titan, and subsurface water on Jupiter's moon Europa, all later confirmed by probes. In addition to significant planetary science, he became the nations best-known popularizer of science, making an appearance on the cover of Time magazine following the thirteen-part Cosmos: A Personal Voyage which co-wrote, co-produced, and hosted on PBS. He was fond of large numbers, often saying "billions and billions", leading to the sagan, a unit of measurement, meaning at least four billion objects. For the last years of his life he fought myelodysplasia, including three bone marrow transplants, and had learned that he was in remission when he died of pneumonia at the Fred Hutchins Cancer Research Center.
Biography from Wikipedia and CrystaLinks
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Carl Sagan quotes:
Quotes found : 63 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 5) 1 2 3 4 5 Next
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- A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism. permalink
Carl Sagan - Contact (1985) - A central lesson of science is that to understand complex issues (or even simple ones), we must try to free our minds of dogma and to guarantee the freedom to publish, to contradict, and to experiment. Arguments from authority are unacceptable. permalink
Carl Sagan - Billions and Billions (1997) - A galaxy is composed of gas and dust and stars—billions upon billions of stars. permalink
Carl Sagan - Cosmos (1980) - A googolplex is precisely as far from infinity as is the number 1... no matter what number you have in mind, infinity is larger. permalink
Carl Sagan - Cosmos (1980) - Advances in medicine and agriculture have saved vastly more lives than have been lost in all the wars in history. permalink
Carl Sagan - The Demon-Haunted World (1995) - As the ancient myth makers knew, we are children equally of the earth and the sky. permalink
Carl Sagan - Cosmos (1980) - Books permit us to voyage through time, to tap the wisdom of our ancestors. permalink
Carl Sagan - Cosmos (1980) - Cleverly designed experiments are the key. permalink
Carl Sagan - "Wonder and Skepticism", Skeptical Enquirer (January-February 1995) - Credulity kills. permalink
Carl Sagan - The Demon-Haunted World (1995) - Eratosthenes was the director of the great library of Alexandria, the Centre of science and learning in the ancient world. Aristotle had argued that humanity was divided into Greeks and everybody else, whom he called barbarians and that the Greeks should keep themselves racially pure. He thought it was fitting for the Greeks to enslave other peoples. But Erathosthenes criticized Aristotle for his blind chauvinism, he believed there was good and bad in every nation. permalink
Carl Sagan - Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (TV series, 1990 update)
Episode 13: Who Speaks for Earth? - Every one of us is precious in the cosmic perspective. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another. permalink
Carl Sagan - Every thinking person fears nuclear war and every technological nation plans for it. Everyone knows it's madness, and every country has an excuse. permalink
Carl Sagan - Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (TV series, 1990 update)
Episode 13: Who Speaks for Earth? - Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. permalink
Carl Sagan - Cosmos (1980) - Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication and courage. But if we don't practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us - and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along. permalink
Carl Sagan - "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection" The Demon-Haunted World (1995) - For all our conceits about being the center of the universe, we live in a routine planet of a humdrum star stuck away in an obscure corner ... of an unexceptional galaxy which is one of about 100 billion galaxies.... That is the fundamental fact of the universe we inhabit, and it is very good for us to understand that. permalink
Carl Sagan
Quotes found : 63 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 5) 1 2 3 4 5 Next
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