Carl Sagan: Memorial Blog Post...

[seawasp]

As reported by many, ten years ago today Carl Sagan, noted astronomer, popularizer of science, skeptic, and all-around cool guy, died.

Sagan's series "Cosmos" was what really brought him into the public eye, and certainly remains the strongest impression of him for me. He was able to do with science what many of us SF writers try -- and often fail -- to accomplish: create a true Sense of Wonder, sometimes just by an image of his OWN wonder on the screen. He was also one of the strongest voices against what he saw as an overpowering wave of mysticism and fuzzy thinking.

There are few like Sagan now, and never have been many, and never will be, because it takes a very special kind of man to do what he did and do it well.

I have saluted him as best I could in my own way; Nicholas Glendale, the famous scientist character in "Boundary" and its forthcoming sequel, is very consciously and strongly based on Sagan. I like to think that, if he were alive, he'd have enjoyed knowing that.

Comments

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Carl Sagan was a great man who had a great and positive effect on how we view our Universe. He achieved important things in realms ranging from astronomy to climatology to xenosociology. He was a polymath with few equals, even in a population as big as ours had become by the end of the 20th century.