I read an article in Smithsonian magazine this week about Carl Sagan by Joel Achenbach. He said, "We live in Carl Sagan's universe--awesomely vast, deeply humbling. It's a universe that, as Sagan reminded us again and again, isn't about us. We're a granular element. Our presence may even be ephemeral--a flash of luminescence in a great dark ocean. Or perhaps we are here to stay, somehow finding a way to transcend our worst instincts and ancient hatreds, and eventually become a galactic species. We could even find others out there, the inhabitants of distant, highly advanced civilizations--the Old Ones, as Sagan might put it."
Carl Sagan's series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage was broadcast on PBS in 1980. It was a huge success and now, in 2014, Cosmos is back in a new version.
In a lecture, after 1990's Voyager I aimed the spacecraft's camera back toward Earth, showing Earth as " . . . just a fuzzy dot amid a streak of sunlight." Sagan said, "That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you have ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives . . . Every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every revered 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."
We are small in this vast universe. Remember to keep your life in perspective, knowing it is only a blip in the vastness time and space.
Carl Sagan's series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage was broadcast on PBS in 1980. It was a huge success and now, in 2014, Cosmos is back in a new version.
In a lecture, after 1990's Voyager I aimed the spacecraft's camera back toward Earth, showing Earth as " . . . just a fuzzy dot amid a streak of sunlight." Sagan said, "That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you have ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives . . . Every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every revered 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."
We are small in this vast universe. Remember to keep your life in perspective, knowing it is only a blip in the vastness time and space.
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