A Brief Timeline of Carl Sagan (1979-1996) 1

A Brief Timeline of Carl Sagan (1979-1996)

Matteo De La Torre

Physics 1040-406

Elementary Astronomy

M. Weiss

4/19/2018
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A Brief Timeline of Carl Sagan (1979-1996)

Before the start of the 80s Carl Sagan was a well established astronomer with many

books and papers to back his name in the scientific community. 1980 Sagan, Bruce Murray, and

louis friedman started a nonprofit called The Planetary Society which focused on research,

advocacy, funding and outreach for projects in astronomy and space exploration. Today The

Planetary Society continues to inform people, back projects, and continue research with over

50,000 concurrent magazine subscribers as of 2017. Astronomy before 1980 was seen only

science because of its high level math, physics, and technical requirements it seemed out of reach

to common people seeming as if was a completely different language. This would change as the

book/tv show Sagan was working on would become one of the most prolific tv shows in the

world.

“​We are made of star stuff” (1973,Carl Sagan) possibly the most well know quote from a

scientist after E=MC^2 this easily understood quote explains a scientific concept that took

thousands of years to find out that in only 6 words. People love to learn, to know why things

happen, and how they work but most don't have the education or time to start reading or

understand a scientific research paper. In the late 1980s Sagan's most influential work ​Cosmos:

A Personal Voyage (1980)​ was released with each of its 13 episodes stunning and inspiring

everyone who watched, captivating the audiences of more than 60 countries, becoming the most

watched american television program and keeping that title for a decade. Cosmos success wasn't

do to one thing alone its success was do to of how Carl Sagan explained complex and confusing

scientific theories and concepts in layman's terms using examples that everyone could relate to.

Due to a 18.7 million dollar budget in today's money cosmos was able to use cutting edge special
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effects to keep audiences eyes from leaving the screen at home. The Legacy of Carl Sagan's

Cosmos is tremendous inspiring and teaching generations of astronomy and human development,

it also had a reboot called ​Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey ​(2014) hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson

who admired Sagan's work and wished to bring cosmos to 21st century to inspire new

generations of astronomers.

In 1983, 8 years before the end of the cold war 10 million people woke up to a parade

article co-authored by Carl Sagan saying “Would nuclear war be the end of the world?”. The

Article introduced the idea of a nuclear winter in october. Soon following the article a paper of

Sagan's and some colleagues named TTAPS which was more in detail then the article did. Carl

Sagan's was scared because he knew the greatest factor of destroying the earth/humanity was

ourselves and our nuclear bombs. It didn't matter who sent the bombs if the countries will vast

amount of nuclear arsonal all went off the dust and debris would go up into the air and block the

sunlight causing crops to not grow leaving us without a sustainable food and warmth causing a

constant winter. Following year Sagan co authored ​co-authored the book- ​“The Cold & The

Dark: The World After Nuclear War.”​ which was a more indepth version of the article. The

impact From sagan wasn't his contribution to the writing as he played a very little part in the

paper/book but was able to get this concept around because of his fame from the cosmos.

Science and math were not the only topics Sagan wrote. 1984 Sagan Wrote one of his

most popular sci fi books “contact”.Sagan's Contact was a best seller telling the stories of how

man and extraterrestrial life talk through math with a twist at the end. The Popularity of this book
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grew to the point that 1 year after sagan died it was produced into a movie starring jodie foster as

the lead winning 5 awards.

During a public lecture at cornell university in 1994 carl showed a picture from voyager 1

that was about 4 billion miles away from earth when it was taken and of this giant picture of the

milky way earth was seen as 12% of a pixel as a pale blue dot. This inspired the name for Carl

Sagan's follow up to Cosmos, a book named ​“​Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in

Space”​. It was more philosophical as sagan wrote more into the nature of human behavior and

there cause and how it would affect the way humans will explore space and there place in it. The

end of humanity and the preservation of earth was the other major part of Pale Blue Dot. During

the same year Carl Sagan developed myelodysplasia which he would later receive 3 bone

marrow transplant to counteract.

1995 Sagan's last project ​"​The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”

was about the misunderstandings and misuses of science. He challenged the readers showing

them in the simplest most coherent way he could on the differences between pseudoscience and

science. Skeptical thinking is the tool that sagan is trying to make people use giving many

examples of how to use it. More of a philosophical book he introduces the patented “baloney

detection kit” in how skeptical thinking is recognizing fallacies while building a solid reasoned

argument of your own. Bais is another subject he explains and how the misuse of science could

create unneeded bias. Last important main point he explains in this book is the scientific method

and its processes, and how experiments are repeated to prove or disprove a hypothesis while

explaining how to spot pseudoscience. The year following in december 20, 1996 at age 62 Carl
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Sagan died due to pneumonia and his dieses leaving the world with these great projects from the

last 17 years of his life.

Bibliography

Vergano, D. (2014, March 17). Who Was Carl Sagan? Retrieved April 19, 2018, from
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/03/140316-carl-sagan-science-galaxies-space/

TheFamousPeople.com, Editors. (2016, October 03). Who is Carl Sagan? Everything You Need
to Know. Retrieved April 19, 2018, from
https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/carl-sagan-155.php

Notablebiographies.com, Editors. (n.d.). Carl Sagan Biography. Retrieved April 19, 2018, from
http://www.notablebiographies.com/Ro-Sc/Sagan-Carl.html

Morrison, D. (2007, January/February). Carl Sagan's Life and Legacy as Scientist, Teacher, and
Skeptic. Retrieved April 19, 20, from
https://www.csicop.org/si/show/carl_sagans_life_and_legacy_as_scientist_teacher_and_skeptic

Ferro, S. (2017, October 10). 11 Out-of-This-World Facts About Carl Sagan. Retrieved April 19,
2018, from ​http://mentalfloss.com/article/64954/11-out-world-facts-about-carl-sagan

Francis, M. R. (2017, November 15). When Carl Sagan Warned the World About Nuclear
Winter. Retrieved April 19, 2018, from
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/when-carl-sagan-warned-world-about-nuclear-
winter-180967198/

Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space Summary & Study Guide. Retrieved april
19, from ​http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-pale-blue-dot/#gsc.tab=0
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