Book: Carl Sagan “Cosmos. Evolution of the Universe, life and civilization
“The world's largest libraries contain millions of volumes, which corresponds to 10^14 bits of information contained in words, and approximately 10^15 bits in illustrations. This is ten thousand times the amount of information contained in our genes, and about ten times the amount of information stored in our brains. If I read one book a week, I will only be able to get through a few thousand volumes in my entire life—a tenth of one percent of the contents of the greatest libraries of our time. The trick is to know which books are worth checking out." K. Sagan "Cosmos"
Rating: no
The largest and most famous non-fiction work of Carl Sagan. True, many years have passed since the book was published, and space research has gone far ahead. Therefore, the illustrations in the book are not very impressive, because at that time there was no Hubble telescope, which gave the most stunning space images, and the planets were not explored and photographed so carefully. In the first chapter, in order to surprise the reader with the beauty of the universe, not photographs of real space are presented, but drawings by artists. The artists tried to depict space objects as realistically as possible, but they are still far from the stunning real photographs of space obtained after the book was published using the Hubble telescope and other new telescopes. The book also features black and white photographs from the Hale Telescope at the Palomar Observatory. This was essentially the Hubble of the time the book was published, the best instrument available for producing first-class images.
But this also has a certain advantage. This book gives a good overview of the latest advances in space exploration as of 1980 and allows one to reflect on how rapidly the body of knowledge about the universe is expanding.
By the way, in 2015, for some unknown reason, a book in Russian was released in a neutered form in the form of bare text without illustrations.
Rating: 10
It was a little late when I took up Sagan. In fact, the only new thing I learned was the meaning of the word “blockbuster.” In addition, he promotes his philosophy and atheism so actively and aggressively that he sometimes replaces history, physics, and astronomy with them. Well, honestly, sometimes I just want to point my horn out of spite and, although I don’t really think so, declare that your Darwin is a fool and the theory of evolution is crap. And God created man. And what you created was defective, so what did you want from what was created the evening before the weekend?
In general, his expression in the promotion of scientific truths and constant repetitions of the fact that Bruno and Copernicus are “foreva”, the church and the state are “must-day”, by the end they simply began to freeze me out. I don't have sclerosis! I not only remember what I read about ten minutes ago, I also remember a little of the history course (certain moments of foreign history, at least). I'll take it to the library, fortunately it says 12+.
Rating: 5
The book by the famous American astrophysicist and popularizer of science K. Sagan talks about the evolution of the Universe, the formation of galaxies and the origin of life and intelligence. The author traces the path to knowledge of the Universe - from the insights of ancient thinkers through the discoveries of Kepler, Newton and Einstein to modern space missions.
CARL SAGAN
SPACE
evolution of the Universe, life and civilization
[SAINT PETERSBURG]
AMPHORA 2005
UDC 53 (023) BBK 22 (7Soe) S 14
The story of cosmic evolution, science and civilization
Translated from English by A. G. Sergeev
The publisher expresses gratitude
Carl Sagan Production Inc. for granting the rights to publish the book
The protection of intellectual property and rights of the publishing group "Amphora" is carried out by the law firm "Uskov and Partners"
Illustrations taken from the publication: Sagan S. Cosmos. New York - Avenel,
New Jersey: Wings Books, 1995.
For comments on the illustrations, see: p. 501-509 of this publication.
Sagan, K. S 14 Cosmos: The Evolution of the Universe, Life and Civilization / Carl Sagan; [transl. from English A. Sergeeva]. - St. Petersburg: Amphora. TID Amphora, 2005. - 525 p. - (Series “New Eureka”).
ISBN 5-94278-522-8 (Russian) ISBN 0-349-10703-3 (English, text) ISBN 0-517-12355-Х (English, ill.)
UDC 53 (023) BBK22(7Soe)
ISBN S-94278-522-8 (Russian) ISBN 0-349-10703-3 (English, text) ISBN 0-517-12355-X (English, ill.)
© 2002 by The Estate of Carl Sagan © Russian edition,
translation, design.
CJSC TID "Amphora", 2004
Electronic table of contents
Electronic table of contents. 4
FROM THE TRANSLATOR.. 5
PREFACE.. 9
Chapter I. ON THE SHORE OF THE SPACE OCEAN... 12
Chapter III. HARMONY OF THE WORLDS.. 31
Five regular Platonic polyhedra. 41
Chapter IV. HEAVEN AND HELL.. 48
The spectrum of electromagnetic radiation ranges from the shortest waves (gamma radiation) to the longest (radio radiation). 58
Chapter V. BLUES OF THE RED PLANET... 64
Chapter VI. ADVENTURES OF TRAVELERS.. 80
Chapter VII. SPINE OF NIGHT.. 93
Chapter VIII. TRAVEL IN SPACE AND TIME... 109
Chapter IX THE LIFE OF STARS... 119
Chapter X THE EDGE OF ETERNITY.. 132
Chapter XI. MEMORY PERMANENCE.. 145
Chapter XII. GALACTIC ENCYCLOPEDIA.. 155
Chapter XIII. WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE EARTH?. 167
APPENDIX 1. Reduction to the absurd, or the Square root of two. 180
APPENDIX 2. Five Pythagorean* bodies. 182
COMMENTS ON COLOR ILLUSTRATIONS... 184
Il. 1. Behind the dark dust curtain of the Orion Nebula, the bright light of hot young stars spreads. 185
Il. 2. Orion's Trapezium - four newborn stars in the Orion Nebula. 186
Il. 3. A herd of floaters drifts above a large atmospheric vortex. 186
Il. 3a. Floater close-up. 187
Il. 3b. Floaters floating above ammonia clouds. 187
Il. 4. False-color image of the Great Red Spot. 188
Il. 5. A photograph of Jupiter taken by the Voyager 1 station in the initial phase of approach from a distance of 28 million km. 188
Il. 10. Night on an icy planet on the edge of the Pleiades star cluster. 190
Il. 11. On a planet orbiting a star on the outskirts of a globular cluster. This goal is achievable only at sub-light speed, which could be achieved by Bussard's starship. 190
Il. 12. The Saturn 5 rocket with the Apollo 14 spacecraft installed at the launch site before the night launch to the Moon. 191
Il. 13. An Apollo 16 astronaut installs a laser retroreflector on the surface of the Moon. 192
Il. 14. Model of the Viking lander in Death Valley in California. 192
Il. 15, 16. Interstellar message from Voyager. 193
Il. 16. The gold-plated disc will keep the recording for billions of years (Fig. 16). 193
POINTER*. 196
FROM THE TRANSLATOR
On Mars, at a point with coordinates 19°20"N, 33°33"W. d., covered with sand, there is a small self-propelled vehicle. And not far from it there is a monument to the man whose book you are now holding in your hands. This is the Carl Sagan Memorial Station. In July 1997, she delivered the self-propelled rover Pathfinder here, and then transmitted images from its video camera to Earth for almost three months. In reality, Pathfinder's journey across the surface of the red planet turned out to be much more modest than the plan that Sagan had in mind, but he guessed correctly the level of public interest in this mission. That summer, reports from Mars were a fixture on the evening television news. But Sagan himself did not live to see this idea realized.
The monument on Mars is far from the only remarkable fact associated with the name of a man who can safely be called the most famous popularizer of science in the 20th century. Sagan intricately combined the strict realism of a scientist and the charismatic intensity of emotions of an irrepressible romantic. His irreconcilable struggle against pseudoscience and superstition, mysticism and dogmatism resulted in reproaches from his opponents, not without certain grounds, that he was turning science itself into an object of religious worship. At the same time, tireless popularization activities and the desire to talk about the most complex scientific problems in an accessible language, without fail, attracted reproaches from conservatives.
eminent colleagues who believed that it was not appropriate for a real scientist to speak so emotionally on nightly talk shows and that it was generally better to stay away from the attention of the “uninitiated” public. Largely because of this, Sagan was voted out of the elections to the National Academy of Sciences. It is curious that the same Academy subsequently presented him with its most prestigious award - a medal for outstanding achievements in the application of science for the benefit of society. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Carl Edward Sagan was born in New York on November 9, 1934. As a child, he read science fiction. The question of the existence of life and intelligence outside the Earth excited his imagination. By the age of 12, he had already firmly decided to be an astronomer and was quickly moving towards his goal. In 1951, at the age of 16, he entered the University of Chicago, at the age of 19 he received a bachelor's degree, and by the age of 25 he became a doctor of astronomy and astrophysics. Having set out to search for extraterrestrial life, Sagan does not forget about biology. During his student years, he worked as a laboratory assistant for Nobel Prize laureate geneticist G. Möller. Here his ideas about biological evolution are formed. Sagan’s scientific level in the field of biological sciences is evidenced by the fact that it was him who was commissioned by the Encyclopedia Britannica to write the article “Life.”
In the 1960s, Sagan worked at the York and Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatories and taught astronomy at Harvard University. Since 1968, he has become a professor of astronomy and space research at Cornell University. Here he creates a laboratory for the study of planets, in which he works until the end of his life.
Sagan has repeatedly emphasized that he was lucky to live in an era when humanity began to explore space. From the very beginning of the American space program, he has been involved in NASA projects to explore the planets of the solar system in the hope of discovering traces of life on them. When it is not
With his financial participation, the mystery of high temperatures on Venus was solved, the reasons for seasonal changes on the surface of Mars were understood, and the color of Titan's atmosphere was explained. All this is described in the book “Cosmos”.
Carl Sagan was a remarkable visionary, and now his legacy must be preserved to further advance our knowledge of life in the Universe and continue space exploration for all time.
Daniel Goldin, NASA director
High science does not tolerate fuss. Most scientists avoid “crazy” hypotheses and do not like to communicate with amateurs. But from time to time, visionaries appear who are cramped in laboratories and departments, who want to directly understand this entire huge world, penetrating its secrets and sharing their discoveries. They are the ones who help us feel the movement of progress and the beauty of knowledge. Carl Sagan was such a visionary.
Among the stars
The future great popularizer and visionary Carl Sagan has been engaged in scientific research since childhood
Carl Edward Sagan was born on November 9, 1934 into a Jewish family from Brooklyn, New York. The parents of the future scientist were not very educated people, but they supported the boy’s curiosity as best they could. The most vivid childhood experience for Karl was visiting the New York World's Fair in 1939. All his life he remembered with trepidation various technical wonders and the famous Futurama attraction - a huge model of the city of the future. “The world turned out to be full of miracles that I had not previously suspected,” Sagan wrote much later.
In 1939, the World Exhibition opened in New York, where leading powers and corporations presented their scientific and technological achievements
The boy's thirst for knowledge led him to the city library, and the first book he asked for there was a brochure on the basics of astronomy. Sagan wanted to know what stars were, and he was shocked to learn that they were the size of our Sun, or even larger, but seemed small due to their enormous distances. At that moment, Karl realized for the first time how big the Universe was, and subsequently tried to convey this awareness to others.
During his school years, Karl became interested in science fiction. At first, his idols were H.G. Wells and Edgar Burroughs, and later he discovered the magazine Astounding Science Fiction, which at that time was headed by the famous John Campbell. Isaac Asimov, Alfred Van Vogt, Lester del Rey, Henry Kuttner, Hall Clement, Theodore Sturgeon, William Tenn and other classics of the genre were published there. Seeing how exciting stories could be combined with cutting-edge scientific ideas made Karl want to become a scientist even more.
At age seven, Sagan visited the Hayden Planetarium in Manhattan. The excursion made a huge impression on him
In 1948, the Sagan family moved to the industrial town of Rahway, near New York. The school there left much to be desired: teachers mindlessly followed the curriculum without developing the students' talents. The spirit of the explorer in young Sagan was supported only by science fiction, which opened a window from the musty everyday life into the world of space adventures. At some point, Karl became interested in chemistry, headed a school club, and set up a laboratory at home. But still, astronomy always came first for him, and it was to this that he decided to devote his life.
In 1951, Sagan entered the physics department at the University of Chicago, which was then headed by the legendary Enrico Fermi. Everything was different here than at school. The teaching was conducted at the highest level, and among the lecturers there were real stars. For example, the scientific supervisor of Sagan’s dissertation “Study of the Physics of Planets” was the famous Gerald Kuiper, who discovered the moons of Uranus and Neptune.
At university, Karl worked with the chemist Harold Urey on a monograph on the origins of life. Years later, from similar works by Sagan and other scientists, a new discipline was born at the intersection of astronomy and biochemistry - astrobiology.
A brilliant education and communication with the best minds of our time could not but influence Sagan’s success. He worked at such prestigious universities as the University of California and Harvard. But there are many such scientists - why is Carl Sagan remembered?
Respond, Martians!
Carl Sagan among the founders of the Planetary Society (1980)
The fact is that Sagan did not hesitate to use his imagination, developed by reading science fiction, in his work. Already at the beginning of his career, he put forward several “crazy” hypotheses. For example, contrary to the general opinion at that time, he suggested that the surface of Venus, due to the greenhouse effect, had long ago turned into a hot desert. He then predicted that Titan, a moon of Saturn, has methane-ethane seas, and that Europa, a moon of Jupiter, has an entire ocean of water hidden under an icy crust. All this was confirmed years later by research devices.
But Sagan's imagination led him even further. Since childhood, he believed in aliens (like many Americans of those years), and science in the 1950s gave hope that there was life at least on Mars. No one hoped to find a developed civilization there, but there was still a chance to discover a biosphere. So Sagan became fascinated by the Red Planet and, in the early 1960s, took part in the Mariner program aimed at studying the solar system. He was disappointed: when in July 1965 the Mariner 4 spacecraft sent the first telephoto images of Mars, it became clear that there were no signs of life on the surface of the planet.
Television images obtained from the Mariner 4 spacecraft showed that there is no life on Mars.
Sagan, like many other astronomers, did not want to accept the results of the mission. Mariner 4 managed to transmit only 22 frames, the quality of which left much to be desired. It took three more spacecraft (Mariner 6, Mariner 7 and Mariner 9) to make it clear to even the most ardent supporters of life on Mars: the Red Planet is a frozen, empty ball with craters.
And even then, Sagan did not give up: he stated that in the harsh conditions of Mars, life could have arisen on a different chemical basis. To illustrate this idea, he wrote the essay “Can Our Presence Be Detected?” (1972), where he wittily “mirrored” the situation. He described how a Martian astronomer could not find life on Earth - because the conditions there are not similar to those on Mars!
Carl Sagan next to the laboratory lander of the Viking spacecraft, designed to detect microscopic life forms on Mars (Photo: JPL)
It was then that Sagan decided that science could and should be popularized, and began writing for a general reader. His numerous essays and lectures later comprised more than a dozen collections. In many of his books, Sagan addresses the issue of alien life and extraterrestrial intelligence, infecting readers with the confidence that space cannot be empty and dead. According to the laws of nature, other civilizations must inevitably appear somewhere, which, like us, strive for contact. Karl decided that we needed to establish this contact ourselves.
In 1971, on the initiative of Sagan and his Soviet colleague Nikolai Kardashev, the first international conference on communications with extraterrestrial intelligence was held in Armenia. At the conference, Sagan criticized "carbon chauvinism" - the idea that alien life can only be carbon-based. He argued that life can have a completely different chemical basis and form even under conditions in which any organisms known to us would die. As a result of the conference, the participants decided not only to continue searching for signals from space, but also to send a message themselves.
After reading the collection “Cosmic Communication,” the famous science fiction writer Isaac Asimov wrote to Carl Sagan: “I realized that you are smarter than me. And it’s infuriating!”
Carl Sagan dreamed of catching signals from another civilization
Sagan took on this task personally. In 1974, the largest Arecibo radio telescope (Puerto Rico), located in the crater of an extinct volcano, sent a powerful signal towards the M13 star cluster in the constellation Hercules. The characteristics of the signal were selected in such a way that after 25 thousand years, having reached the target, it would, due to scattering, cover the entire cluster of 30 thousand stars. The message itself, which Sagan compiled with Frank Drake (the author of the equation that calculates the hypothetical number of civilizations in the galaxy), contained only 1679 bits of information. They contained the most necessary information about us, our biochemical basis and the Solar system.
But Sagan believed that we should not limit ourselves to signals alone. He proposed placing earthly artifacts and messages on board spacecraft departing into deep space. NASA listened to him: four devices of the Pioneer and Voyager series carried our messages into space in the mid-1970s. Their content was again invented by Carl Sagan himself. Aboard the Pioneers, the famous gold-plated aluminum plaques depicting a man, a woman and the solar system (drawn by Linda, Carl Sagan's second wife) went into space. The message also indicated the location of the Sun relative to nearby pulsars, two states of the hydrogen atom and the trajectory of the Pioneer relative to the Solar System.
Sagan compiled the contents of the first signal intended for extraterrestrial civilizations
On the Voyagers, a record with audio and video recordings was sent into space, including greetings in 55 languages, musical compositions and earthly sounds, photographs of earthly landscapes, animals and people. In addition, it included addresses from UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim and US President Jimmy Carter. By the way, Ann Druyan, the future third wife of Carl Sagan, was responsible for the selection of recordings.
It was Carl Sagan who proposed sending messages to other civilizations on board spacecraft.
On February 14, 1990, at Sagan's suggestion, NASA took a photograph of the Earth from a distance of 6 billion km using the Voyager 1 spacecraft. It was called Pale Blue Dot - “Pale Blue Dot”. Sagan loved to show it at his lectures.
![](https://i2.wp.com/mirf.ru/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/PaleBlueDot.jpg)
“Take another look at this point,” said the scientist. - It's here. This is our house. This is us. Everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you have ever heard of, every person who has ever existed lived their lives on it. Our multitude of pleasures and sufferings, thousands of self-righteous religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and gatherer, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every couple in love, every mother and every father, every capable child, inventor and traveler, every ethics teacher, every lying politician, every “superstar”, every “greatest leader”, every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived here - on a speck suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a small stage in the vast cosmic arena... Our posturing, our imagined importance, the illusion of our privileged status in the Universe - they all give in to this point of pale light. Our planet is just a lonely speck of dust in the surrounding cosmic darkness. In this vast emptiness there is not a hint that anyone will come to our aid to save us from our ignorance.”
Blow up the Moon
In the late 1950s, graduate student Carl Sagan took part in preparing a nuclear explosion on the Moon.
Carl Sagan was, of course, a cosmist, that is, in everything, even in the most mundane phenomena, he found a direct connection with the processes taking place in the Universe. And he assigned a special place to reason in these processes. “Through us, the cosmos understands itself,” said Sagan. He believed that humanity would evolve as an intelligent species and one day become a galactic phenomenon, equal in power to the imaginary gods of antiquity.
But for this it is necessary to get rid of the natural aggressiveness that threatens our existence. The prospect of human self-destruction, which seemed very real at the height of the Cold War, frightened Sagan. He was familiar with this problem firsthand. Few people know this, but in his youth Sagan prevented the United States from... blowing up the Moon.
In May 1958, the US military invited scientists to prepare a project for a nuclear explosion on the Moon. The purpose of the project, called A-119, was to show the superiority of the United States over the USSR, since the explosion would be clearly visible from Earth. It would also reveal something about the lunar surface, some of which would be thrown into space.
To work on the A-119, a team of ten scientists was assembled under the leadership of Leonard Reiffel. Among them was Kuiper, who brought his graduate student Sagan into the work. He was tasked with simulating the expansion of a dust cloud in cislunar space after the explosion and assessing its visibility from Earth. The team worked until January 1959, after which the project was closed, and Sagan’s calculations also influenced this. They showed that radiation contamination would complicate future missions to the Moon.
Of course, the project was strictly classified. We would never have known about him if not for Kay Davidson's study "Carl Sagan: A Life" (1999). The biographer was surprised to find in Sagan’s application for a scholarship reference to the reports “On the possible contribution of nuclear explosions to solving problems of astronomy” and “Radiological contamination of the Moon by nuclear explosions.” Former project manager Reiffel took the opportunity to tell the public about it. Even after his death, Sagan helped reveal one of the mysteries of history. Quite in his spirit!
By the 1980s, Sagan had become an ardent pacifist and openly fought for nuclear disarmament. He was largely influenced by the Marxist views of Ann Druyan. When President Ronald Reagan announced plans for a space defense system dubbed "Star Wars" in 1983, Sagan publicly opposed it. He took part in a protest at an old nuclear test site in the Nevada desert. As a result, Sagan and hundreds of other participants were arrested.
Carl Sagan became a cult figure during his lifetime
To sway public opinion towards anti-war ideas, Sagan modeled the possible consequences of the massive use of atomic weapons. The result was the works “Cold and Darkness: The World After Nuclear War” (1984) and “The Path No One Thought About: Nuclear Winter and the End of the Arms Race” (1990). In them, Sagan and his colleagues argued that climate change that would follow a nuclear war would destroy life on Earth. This concept subsequently became known as "nuclear winter". The theory is controversial, but even those who consider nuclear winter a myth admit: it is a myth that can save humanity.
Little green men
In the 1950s, the United States was gripped by a real “plate addiction”
Having met the French astronomer and ufologist Jacques Vallier, who worked for NASA, Sagan decided to study the phenomenon of “flying saucers” from a scientific perspective. In 1966, he served on a committee led by physicist Edward Condon that analyzed UFO data. After two years of work, Condon's committee concluded that, although individual cases are difficult to explain scientifically, there is no serious evidence of contact with aliens.
Even after this, Sagan continued to write about “flying saucers” and devoted an entire episode of the TV series “Cosmos” to the problem of UFOs. True, he always warned readers against hasty conclusions and accompanied the books with cartoons ridiculing the stereotype of “little green men.”
Space travel of a scientist
By the end of the 1970s, Carl Sagan's authority as a person who could talk about the wonders and mysteries of the Universe had grown so much that he was asked to do. The result was the thirteen-episode show "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage", which was shown from September 28 to December 21, 1980.
Screensaver of the television series “Space: A Personal Journey”
In the project, Sagan acted not only as a co-author of the script, but also as a presenter - and looked great in this role. The signature feature of the series was an original special effect: a scientist gives a lecture while sitting in the interior of a “ship of imagination”, reminiscent of the control room of a future starship. It is as if he himself travels through space and time, becoming a witness to great events and processes - from the Big Bang to the appearance of man and the launch of the first interplanetary spacecraft. The program for searching for extraterrestrial civilizations - SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) was also not ignored. But the main theme was the Universe itself: its incredible scale and the mystery of its appearance.
Sagan Studio in the series
The budget for the series was $6.3 million, but it paid off handsomely. “Cosmos: A Personal Journey” was strikingly different from the documentary series of that time, which aroused great interest among the public. It was watched by over 500 million people in 60 countries. It became an example for many other popular science programs. The series won a Peabody Award and two Emmy Awards.
In the television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, Carl Sagan acted as co-writer and host of all thirteen episodes.
In 1986, a special version of the series appeared with six episodes. Although Sagan's story was shortened, the content was expanded with new scientific data and computer graphics. In 1989, the rights to A Personal Journey were acquired by media mogul Ted Turner, after which the series was further developed: the original episodes were shortened and provided with epilogues, where Sagan talked about new discoveries made recently. In addition, a fourteenth episode was filmed, consisting of an interview with Sagan conducted by Turner.
In 2014, Fox announced the filming of a sequel entitled “Cosmos: Space and Time.” The screenwriter was the same Druyan, and the presenter was the charismatic astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. The series started on March 9, 2014 and was warmly received by the public.
Carl's widow Anne Druyan and Neil deGrasse Tyson developed Sagan's ideas in the television series "Cosmos: Space and Time"
Presenter's studio in the new "Cosmos"
But Sagan remained in history not only thanks to science. He also contributed to his favorite science fiction. In 1979, together with Ann Druyan, he wrote the script for a science-fiction film about the work of searchers for extraterrestrial intelligence. At that time, the Cosmos series had not yet been released, so the project failed to interest anyone.
Then Sagan reworked the script into a novel. A year later, on the wave of the popularity of Cosmos, the publishing house Simon & Schuster bought the rights to the not yet completed book for two million dollars - an incredible advance at that time. And it was right. The novel Contact became a bestseller: over 1.7 million copies were sold in the first two years. The book received the Locus and the John Campbell Award for best debut of the year.
The secret of success is Sagan’s ability to combine science with philosophy and religion. The main character, radio astronomer Ellie Arroway, dreams of establishing contact with an alien civilization. One day, the equipment of her observatory receives a signal from Vega. The message is deciphered, and it turns out that this is a description of a certain machine. Despite the fears of politicians, the car is still being built. It turns out to be a teleporter that uses subspace tunnels for instant travel.
Jodie Foster as Ellie Arroway in the film adaptation of Contact
On one of these teleports, an expedition sets off on a space journey, including Ellie. Scientists find themselves at a “galactic station”, where they are informed that there is a community of aliens who are solving the problem of the “heat death” of the Universe, using astro-engineering structures for this. In addition, travelers learn that the “tunnels” and “stations” were built by an even more ancient and powerful civilization and that the digital message from it is contained in the number “pi”. It turns out that the Universe itself is an artificial formation created by supermind.
The ending of the novel describes Sagan's attitude to the idea of God. Charles was ready to admit its existence if irrefutable evidence was presented, and he condemned those atheists who deny God based only on unfounded allegations. At the same time, the Almighty, according to Sagan, could not be a handsome old man on a cloud. If it exists, then our naive ideas about it should be very different from reality.
A film based on this story was finally released in 1997 - it was directed by Robert Zemeckis, director of the Back to the Future trilogy. Sagan did not live to see the premiere: he died in December 1996 after a two-year battle with cancer. The Hugo Award-winning film is dedicated to his memory.
* * *
He searched for life on Mars and predicted oceans on Europa. He stopped the US from bombing the moon and scared the world with the idea of nuclear winter. He infected thousands of people with a love of knowledge and wrote the script for the most science fiction film. The biography of Carl Sagan serves as an excellent example to follow. To deeply understand the world, you need to enjoy its beauty. To discover new things, you need to give free rein to your imagination. To live fully, you need to value life. This is what Carl Sagan did. And he bequeathed this to all of us.
The book by the famous American astrophysicist and popularizer of science K. Sagan talks about the evolution of the Universe, the formation of galaxies and the origin of life and intelligence. The author traces the path to knowledge of the Universe - from the insights of ancient thinkers through the discoveries of Kepler, Newton and Einstein to modern space missions.
CARL SAGAN
SPACE
evolution of the Universe, life and civilization
[SAINT PETERSBURG]
AMPHORA 2005
UDC 53 (023) BBK 22 (7Soe) S 14
The story of cosmic evolution, science and civilization
Translated from English by A. G. Sergeev
The publisher expresses gratitude
Carl Sagan Production Inc. for granting the rights to publish the book
The protection of intellectual property and rights of the publishing group "Amphora" is carried out by the law firm "Uskov and Partners"
Illustrations taken from the publication: Sagan S. Cosmos. New York - Avenel,
New Jersey: Wings Books, 1995.
Comments on the illustrations of this publication.
Sagan, K. S 14 Cosmos: The Evolution of the Universe, Life and Civilization / Carl Sagan; [transl. from English A. Sergeeva]. – St. Petersburg: Amphora. TID Amphora, 2005. - 525 p. - (Series “New Eureka”).
ISBN 5-94278-522-8 (Russian) ISBN 0-349-10703-3 (English, text) ISBN 0-517-12355-Х (English, ill.)
UDC 53 (023) BBK22(7Soe)
ISBN S-94278-522-8 (Russian) ISBN 0-349-10703-3 (English, text) ISBN 0-517-12355-X (English, ill.)
© 2002 by The Estate of Carl Sagan © Russian edition,
translation, design.
CJSC TID "Amphora", 2004
FROM THE TRANSLATOR
On Mars, at a point with coordinates 19°20"N, 33°33"W. d., covered with sand, there is a small self-propelled vehicle. And not far from it there is a monument to the man whose book you are now holding in your hands. This is the Carl Sagan Memorial Station. In July 1997, she delivered the self-propelled rover Pathfinder here, and then transmitted images from its video camera to Earth for almost three months. In reality, Pathfinder's journey across the surface of the red planet turned out to be much more modest than the plan that Sagan had in mind, but he guessed correctly the level of public interest in this mission. That summer, reports from Mars were a fixture on the evening television news. But Sagan himself did not live to see this idea realized.
The monument on Mars is far from the only remarkable fact associated with the name of a man who can safely be called the most famous popularizer of science in the 20th century. Sagan intricately combined the strict realism of a scientist and the charismatic intensity of emotions of an irrepressible romantic. His irreconcilable struggle against pseudoscience and superstition, mysticism and dogmatism resulted in reproaches from his opponents, not without certain grounds, that he was turning science itself into an object of religious worship. At the same time, tireless popularization activities and the desire to talk about the most complex scientific problems in an accessible language, without fail, attracted reproaches from conservative colleagues who believed that it was not appropriate for a real scientist to speak so emotionally on night talk shows and that it was generally better to stay away from attention of the “uninitiated” public. Largely because of this, Sagan was voted out of the elections to the National Academy of Sciences. It is curious that the same Academy subsequently presented him with its most prestigious award - a medal for outstanding achievements in the application of science for the benefit of society. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Carl Edward Sagan was born in New York on November 9, 1934. As a child, he read science fiction. The question of the existence of life and intelligence outside the Earth excited his imagination. By the age of 12, he had already firmly decided to be an astronomer and was quickly moving towards his goal. In 1951, at the age of 16, he entered the University of Chicago, at the age of 19 he received a bachelor's degree, and by the age of 25 he became a doctor of astronomy and astrophysics. Having set out to search for extraterrestrial life, Sagan does not forget about biology. During his student years, he worked as a laboratory assistant for Nobel Prize laureate geneticist G. Möller. Here his ideas about biological evolution are formed. Sagan’s scientific level in the field of biological sciences is evidenced by the fact that it was him who was commissioned by the Encyclopedia Britannica to write the article “Life.”
In the 1960s, Sagan worked at the York and Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatories and taught astronomy at Harvard University. Since 1968, he has become a professor of astronomy and space research at Cornell University. Here he creates a laboratory for the study of planets, in which he works until the end of his life.
Sagan has repeatedly emphasized that he was lucky to live in an era when humanity began to explore space. From the very beginning of the American space program, he has been involved in NASA projects to explore the planets of the solar system in the hope of discovering traces of life on them. With his direct participation, the mystery of high temperatures on Venus was solved, the reasons for seasonal changes on the surface of Mars were understood, and the color of Titan's atmosphere was explained. All this is described in the book “Cosmos”.
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence has always been tinged with romance, but Sagan is not attracted to the easy path of self-indulgence that ufologists take. He approaches the question of the existence of life on other planets as an extremely important, interesting, complex, but strictly scientific problem. He invested a huge amount of effort into the SETI program, the first scientific project to search for radio signals from extraterrestrial civilizations. And even Sagan considers the criterion that a civilization has reached a high level of technological development not to be space exploration or the development of nuclear energy, but the discovery of radio astronomy.
One of Carl Sagan's first popular science books was called Intelligent Life in the Universe. It was written in 1966 in collaboration with the founder of the Soviet school of stellar astrophysics and an ardent supporter of the SETI program I. S. Shklovsky, whose book “The Universe, Life, Mind” was published in Russian several years earlier. Interestingly, Shklovsky eventually became disillusioned with his early romantic beliefs and in 1976 published an article in the journal “Problems of Philosophy” under the pessimistic title “On the possible uniqueness of intelligent life in the Universe.” Sagan, on the contrary, until his last days hoped that extraterrestrial signals were about to be discovered. In 1985, he wrote the science fiction novel Contact, which was made into a film of the same name in 1994 at Warner Brothers. The Planetary Society, founded by Sagan in 1980, and now, after NASA has officially closed the SETI program, continues to support a large-scale project in which anyone can take part. Over time, popularization activities occupy more and more space in Sagan’s life, his new ones are published almost every year books. These are not just stories about scientific research, presented in accessible language, of which many have been written. His works are literature in the full sense of the word. Sagan received the Pulitzer Prize in 1978 for his book Dragons of Eden: Reflections on the Evolution of the Human Mind. Sagan's literary talent is in no way inferior to his artistic abilities and oratory. This is evidenced by the Grammy Award for an audio cassette on which he reads his book “Pale Blue Dot”, dedicated to the cosmic future of mankind.
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