Its the birthday of astronomer Carl Sagan, born in Brooklyn (1934). His father was a hard-working Ukrainian immigrant garment worker, and his mother was an intellectual housewife who doted on her son. He said: My parents were not scientists. They knew almost nothing about science. But in introducing me simultaneously to skepticism and to wonder, they taught me the two uneasily cohabiting modes of thought that are central to the scientific method. He grew up fascinated by both science and science fiction, and went on to study physics at the University of Chicago. He got a job teaching at Harvard, where he conducted breakthrough research on the atmosphere of Venus. He also gave a popular series of lectures called Planets are Places, which was a new idea at the time, in the early days of planetary science. He was denied tenure at Harvard, so in 1968 he moved on to the astronomy department at Cornell, where he taught for the rest of his career. He worked 18-hour days, throwing himself into research, teaching, editing a scientific journal, writing articles and books, and his ever-increasing media presence. He collaborated with his wife to create the hugely popular, 13-part television series Cosmos, which was broadcast in 1980. He and his wife wrote and produced it, and he narrated it, wearing a turtleneck and a corduroy blazer. Cosmos was a wild success — since its launch it has been seen by 750 million viewers. Shortly after its release, the shows companion book, Cosmos (1980), became the best-selling science book ever published. After Cosmos, Sagan became a major celebrity. A lot of the calls and letters he received were from crazy people informing him of planets they had discovered or aliens they had locked in their basements. But he also received death threats. Some people were angry with him for his work as a senior author of a Science magazine article on the possible atmospheric consequences of nuclear war — Sagan believed that the resulting smoke would reach the stratosphere and cool the temperature of the planet, causing a nuclear winter. Less politically minded death threats came from UFO enthusiasts who were furious that despite Sagans investigations of extraterrestrial life, he had concluded that there was no good evidence to show that aliens had visited Earth. Sagan continued to publish, teach, and appear regularly on television. He died in 1996 of complications from a rare bone marrow disease. In 2008, the National Academy of Science worried that science was becoming too removed from everyday life in America, and reached out to the entertainment industry in an attempt to popularize the subject. They set up a group to bring together top scientists and entertainers, and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson was introduced to Seth MacFarlane, the creator of the animated TV show Family Guy. MacFarlane was a huge Sagan fan, and when Tyson told him that he had been talking with Sagans widow about hosting a remake of Cosmos, MacFarlane took on the project — he pitched it to Fox and became an executive producer. The series had its premiere last spring. Carl Sagans books include The Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective (1973), Contact (1985), and The Demon-Haunted World (1995). He said: I think Im able to explain things because understanding wasnt entirely easy for me. Some things that the most brilliant students were able to see instantly I had to work to understand. I can remember what I had to do to figure it out. The very brilliant ones figure it out so fast they never see the mechanics of understanding.
Posted on: Sun, 09 Nov 2014 12:32:01 +0000