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Remembering Carl Sagan (1934-1996)

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Sir Ulli

Member
Joined
Oct 6, 2002
Location
Germany NRW
Carl Sagan, co-founder of The Planetary Society and an inspiration to millions the world over, passsed away ten years ago on December 20, 1996. To the memory of Carl, to his dreams, and to his unfinished mission, we dedicate these pages.
...

http://www.planetary.org/about/founders/carlsagan/

und

Where Would We Be With Carl?

by Ann Druyan, his Wife

http://www.planetary.org/about/founders/carlsagan/ann_druyan.html

Weather permitting, Carl preferred to think and write outdoors amidst the natural beauty that surrounds our home in Ithaca, New York. As I write this, I look out on the clearing down by the waterfall where he would work, sitting at a table, all but motionless for hours at a time. He said the music of the rushing water provided the perfect background white noise for concentrating. When Carl and I were writing Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, I once looked up from the computer in my office to find him deep in thought, his attention so highly focused on our manuscript that he was completely unaware of the rather large deer peering over his shoulder, as if trying to read what he was writing. The waterfall, the gorge with its record of the aeons inscribed in its strata, and the still-wild animals remain for now. The chair is empty.

und natürlich dieses

pbd.jpg


Reflections on a Mote of Dust

We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every 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 in 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 the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. 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. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, 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 and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.


und nicht zu vergessen

sagan_uc.gif

Picture of the Day of 26.12.1996

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap961226.html

und

For Ann Druyan

In the vastness of space and the immensity of time,
it is my joy to share
a planet and an epoch with Annie.

http://www.csicop.org/si/2003-11/ann-druyan.html

Greetings from Germany NRW
Sir Ulli
 
7734, I missed his bDay. :( Contact is a wonderful book as well as a great movie.

Thank you, Carl, for helping all of us look beyond our everyday lives ...!
 
Ah yes. I've been meaning to read at least one of his books, I think Cosmos, for years and still haven't. Thanks for reminding me... however morbid of a reminder it is.

As for the deer, reminds me of the guy who went tiger photo hunting and fell asleep where he was crouched waiting for a tiger to come by. He woke up to fresh giant tiger prints right behind him, close enough to be touching.
 
I say we all dedicate at least 1 work unit to him.

And yes, even though I was 7 when he passed, I still watch Cosmos.
 
Tyrinon said:
Cosmos? Was this a movie or TV show or something?

It was a TV series, yes. We used to watch taped episodes in my high school physics class on Fridays. I really enjoyed it, although many of my classmates liked to nap during that time.
 
Thanks for the info, FloridaBear. :thup: I Googled for more info and found out that there were 13 episodes that went out on PBS in the 80's, plus a 14th episode was developed expressing new view points and new info about what was learned x years later. So far it is figured that the series has been viewed 500 million to one billion times world wide! :eek:

The Cosmos series looks like something I should try to locate for viewing at home. :)

:santa2:
 
I met him in '95 when he was in Seattle for treatment, in fact it was the day after Galileo had reached Jupiter and he
wouldn't tell me anything about it :rolleyes:

He looked pretty bad then and he was with a very attractive young woman - not his wife. That last link is interesting Ulli ;)
 
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