I have never read any of Carl Sagan’s works before, but I have decided to start with his latest and last work. I am about fifty pages into it, and so far he has done a good job making normally boring (light, sound, etc.) quite interesting. I was just wondering what some other opinions on it were.
I read Cosmos in high school just because I thought it would look cool to carry around. I don’t really have a lot of interest in space so I remember nothing about it, but it must’ve been interesting enough to hold my attention, since I’m pretty sure I finished it. I was into James Burke’s Connections and The Day the Universe Changed, just so you don’t think I’m not into science at all or anything.
Interesting tidbit: Sagan claims he never said the phrase “Billions and billions.” He admits he might have said “millions and millions” or “millions of billions” but “billions and billions” is just too impossibly large to even discuss, lol.
I read B&B after “The Demon Haunted World”. DHW is his best work, IMO. B&B was a bit disappointing after that, but what wouldn’t be?
Read DHW next.
I remember reading an interview with him in Playboy where he was asked about the Bermuda Triangle or something relating to it. He basicly said that things disappear there without a trace, because things sink in water. He said if there was an area that size on dry land where trucks and trains regularly went missing without trace, THAT would be worth talking about!
A class act, and funny guy without even trying!
She said she loved me like a brother. That’s great, cause she’s from Arkansas!
When I was young Cosmos was my favorite program. I still vividly remember watching two episodes. The one about time dilation and the other in which he discussed googles and googleplexes. The last one, my mother tells me, got me into trouble one day at school. We were all showing off by saying things like “I dare you 100 times” and so forth, or something like that. And I said I “I dare you a googleplex” and everybody laughed and said I had made the number up. Sigh. Ooh and his spaceship, that was really cool too.
Cosmos, Connections and The Day the Universe Changed are all three series I would love to get on DVD.
Huh. I’ve lived in Iowa for more than twenty years and never heard that story… interesting.
Isn’t millions of billions (1e6 * 1e9) a lot bigger than billions and billions (> 1e9 + 1e9)?
My wife and her friends have called any large number exceeding 10 to the ninth power a “Sagan”, because it’s “billions and billions”.
I don’t know if he ever said “Billions and billions”, but he definitely did say “billions” in that peculiarly nasal voice of his, and I’m sure he said something at least similar to “billions and billions”. That catchphrase isn’t completely due to imitators.
I’m currently reading Cosmos (I’m just right at the end); I thought some of the human bits were somewhat cliche, but it’s pretty good. (And I’m surprised by hoe tolerant he is of the religious, at least some of them.)
I had the good fortune to get to know Dr. Sagan a little near the end of his life. He was really a very cool guy – also a laugh riot – and even though I was a punk undergraduate and he was, uh, Carl Sagan he was still willing to listen to what I had to say. (I think I managed to convince him that philosophical skepticsm was not absurd, which is a tough thing to convince a scientist of, given their empirical bent.) Although my favorite mental picture is of him standing in the road directing traffic away from the car that had just crashed into his house (if you’ve ever seen it, you know it’s an easy house to crash into), with this big pleasant smile on his face. I have to say, I wouldn’t have been nearly that magnanimous if someone crashed into my house.
–Cliffy
Sorry; that should be Contact, not Cosmos.
Duh.
Wasn’t it Johnny Carson who first started the billions and billions parody? Carson at least had a right to, for he featured Sagan regularly on his program. Imagine any of the late night hosts today having scientists on to discuss scientific theory, as opposed to glitzy and silly physics demonstrations.
For those who are interested:
thousand = 10^ 3
million = 10^ 6
billion = 10^ 9
trillion = 10^ 12
quadrillion = 10^ 15
quintillion = 10^ 18
sextillion = 10^ 21
septillion = 10^ 24
octillion = 10^ 27
nonillion = 10^ 30
decillion = 10^ 33
undecillion = 10^ 36
dodecillion = 10^ 39
tredecillion = 10^ 42
quattuordecillion = 10^ 45
quintdecillion = 10^ 48
sexdecillion = 10^ 51
septendecillion = 10^ 54
octodecillion = 10^ 57
novemdecillion = 10^ 60
vigintillion = 10^ 63
unvigintillion = 10^ 66
dovigintillion = 10^ 69
trevigintillion = 10^ 72
quattuorvigintillion = 10^ 75
quintvigintillion = 10^ 78
sexvigintillion = 10^ 81
septenvigintillion = 10^ 84
octovigintillion = 10^ 87
novemvigintillion = 10^ 90
trigintillion = 10^ 93
untrigintillion = 10^ 96
dotrigintillion = 10^ 99
tretrigintillion = 10^102
quattuortrigintillion = 10^105
quintrigintillion = 10^108
sextrigintillion = 10^111
septentrigintillion = 10^114
octotrigintillion = 10^117
novemtrigintillion = 10^120
This isn’t much for a cite but it was the only thing I found on Google.
Ok, you’re not going to believe this, but I found the actual article stuffed into my high school yearbook. I’ll just quote the first part and hope it’s not too much of a copyright issue:
Parade Magazine
May 31, 1987
Page 8
Looks like Johnny Carson IS the culprit!
Here’s a link I found mentioning Sagan’s writing for Parade and the Johnny Carson angle.
I don’t know if it’s listed in that link*, but in some interview Sagan did admit to having emphasized the “b” in “billions” to make it more noticeable. I don’t have a copy of “Cosmos,” so I can’t independently verify it. Johnny then would have just added his own touch.
This is sorta like the comic (Vaughn Meader?) that created Ed Sullivan’s phrase “rrrillly big shew.” Even though Sullivan didn’t actually say it himself–he should have.
*The last time I tried to access anything relating to “skeptics” our firewall slapped me in the face, and I’m not willing to risk it again.
Sagan is one of my heroes. An incredible mind. Demon-Haunted World is a great book and I wish I could make everyone read it.
I highly recommend Demon-Haunted World as well, and anything else by Sagan for that matter. On a personal level, however, I have to say that his most inspiring book was The Pale Blue Dot. It simultaneously delivers both a sobering look at humankind’s tiny, tiny place in our vast universe, and hope for a future that includes exploration and colonization of not only our own solar system, but worlds yet to be discovered.
dwc1970 wrote:
thousand = 10^ 3
million = 10^ 6
billion = 10^ 9
trillion = 10^ 12
quadrillion = 10^ 15
This is only true in the United States.
In Great Britain, the progression is:
thousand = 10^ 3
million = 10^ 6
billion = 10^ 12
trillion = 10^ 18
quadrillion = 10^ 24
… So, while a billion is a thousand-million in the U.S., it’s a million-million in the U.K… Brits call a thousand million a “milliard.”
I remember Sagan trashing von Däniken on the tracks seen from the air:
“So these aliens came from thousands of lightyears away, land here, and build runways? What did they unload? DC-3’s?” (paraphrased)
The Bad Astronomer wrote:
I’ve skimmed through B&B but have not been able to get myself to sit down and read it. It’s too full of environmental-alarmism for my taste.