06/01/15 - Carl Sagans Reading List “Success,” concluded this 1942 anatomy of inspiration, “depends on sufficient knowledge of the special subject, and a variety of extraneous knowledge to produce new and original combinations of ideas.” Few are the heroes of modern history more “successful” and inspired than the great Carl Sagan, and his 1954 reading list, part of his papers recently acquired by the Library of Congress, speaks to precisely this blend of wide-angle, cross-disciplinary curiosity and focused, in-field expertise — and is balanced with a healthy approach to reading and “non-reading”, with some books read “in whole” and others “in part.” (Sagan, as we know, was an avid advocate of books.) Besides books immediately relevant to Sagan’s work as a scientist and educator in cosmology and astrophysics, he took great care to also touch on history, philosophy, religion, the arts, social science, and psychology. A small but revealing sample, fodder for your own cognitive bookshelf: >Extraordinary Popular Delusions (public library; public domain) by Charles Mackay >The Uses of the Past: Profiles of Former Societies (public library) by Herbert Joseph Muller >The Immoralist (public library) by André Gide >Education for Freedom (public library) by Robert Maynard Hutchins (Chapter One: “The Autobiography of an Uneducated Man”) >Young Archimedes and Other Stories (public library) by Aldous Huxley >Timaeus (public library; public domain) by Plato >Who Speaks for Man? (public library) by Norman Cousins >The Republic (public library; public domain) by Plato >The History of Western Philosophy (public library) by W. T. Jones >But We Were Born Free (public library) by Elmer Holmes Davis P.S. Carl Sagans TV Series (13 Parts) - The Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (1981 on BBC) was my inspiration into venturing and learning, as an amateur, about Astronomy and Cosmology and he had a very special way of explaining the science of cosmology to a lay person and I can never forget that wonderful mannerism and that gifted beautiful voice narrating the journey into the unknown resonates in my ears, even today. Sad, that he passed away at a very young age of only 61 years (from todays mortality rate in the West) in 1996. Here is a review on Carl Sagan (at Amazon): CARL SAGANS COSMOS - A PERSONAL VOYAGE Cosmos tells the fascinating story of how nearly fifteen billion years of cosmic evolution transformed matter and life into consciousness, of how science and civilisation grew up together and of the forces and individuals who helped shape modern science. Astronomer Dr. Carl Sagan is host and narrator of this amazing 13-hour series which originally aired on the BBC in the UK and on Public Broadcasting Stations in the United States in 1980 and has since been broadcast in over 60 countries worlwide to a global audience of more than 500 million Dr. Sagan describes the universe in a way that appeals to a mass audience, by using Earth as a reference point, by speaking in terms intelligible to non-scientific people, by relating the exploration of space to that of the Earth by pioneers of old, and by citing such Earth legends as the Library of Alexandria as metaphors for space-related future events. Among Dr. Sagans favorite topics are the origins of life, the search for life on Mars, the infernal composition of the atmosphere of Venus and a warning about a similar effect taking place on Earth due to global pollution and the greenhouse effect, the lives of stars, interstellar travel and the effects of attaining the speed of light, the danger of mankind technologically self-destructing, and the search, using radio technology, for intelligent life in deep space. Now remastered and restored, this multi-Primetime Emmy Award winning masterpiece, featuring music from Vangelis, is regarded as one of, if not, the greatest scientific series of all time COSMOS: A SPACE-TIME ODYSSEY Following Sagans death in 1996, his widow Ann Druyan, the co-creator of the original Cosmos series along with Steven Soter, a producer from the series, and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, sought to create a new version of the series, aimed to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. Step foward none other than Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy, Ted, American Dad, The Cleveland Show amongst others Influenced by Cosmos as a child, MacFarlane believed that Cosmos served to bridge the gap between the academic community and the general public. Having met Tyson in 2008, MacFarlane told Tyson, Im at a point in my career where I have some disposable income and Id like to spend it on something worthwhile. Cosmos: A Space-Time Odyssey was commissoned in 2011 & is due to be broadcast in the US on 10th March 2014 and on 16th March in the UK on SKY1 and the National Geographic channel. Review Carl Sagans masterpiece, probably the most important reason I got interested in astronomy. --Professor Brian Cox Posted by: ZAC Consulting working in practice and international development for a better, inclusive, and peaceful world United Kingdom`
Posted on: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 01:59:05 +0000
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