Carl Sagan
by Keay Davidson
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"Carl Sagan was one of the most celebrated scientists of his time - the leading visionary of the Space Age. He was also a highly controversial figure who inspired wildly opposed opinions. His enthusiasm and eloquence about the wonders of space, the marvels of the human brain, and the mysteries of life captured the imagination of millions. Yet one scientist was so enraged by Sagan's scientific pronouncements that he compared him to the Black Plague, and William F. Buckley, Jr. likened him to show more circus huckster P.T. Barnum." "Sagan's life was both an intellectual feast and an emotional roller coaster. Whether he was searching for life on Mars or visiting Timothy Leary in prison, prophesying exciting scientific discoveries or getting arrested for protesting nuclear weapons, debating the existence of UFOs or advocating the creative benefits of smoking marijuana, Carl Sagan was a fascinating, charismatic, and complex man full of contradictions." "His TV series Cosmos awed hundreds of millions around the world, and his bestseller The Dragons of Eden won the Pulitzer Prize. Yet the value of his scientific work was often called into question. His Ph. D. dissertation narrowly escaped rejection, he was denied tenure at Harvard, and in the twilight of his life, he was denied membership in the prestigious National Academy of Sciences." "In this insightful and evenhanded biography, science journalist Keay Davidson reveals for the first time the man behind the famous image - the storm of contradictions and passions that animated this enigmatic and entrancing man who remained, at heart, the five-year-old Brooklyn boy who looked up at the stars and asked: What are they?"--Jacket. show lessTags
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Author Information
5+ Works 1,004 Members
Keay Davidson is the science writer for the San Francisco Examiner. He has won the two top awards in American science journalism: the American Association for the Advancement of Science-Westinghouse Prize and the National Association of Science Writers' Science in Society award. His articles have appeared in many magazines, including National show more Geographic, New Scientist, Sky and Telescope, and Mother Jones, and his books include the internationally acclaimed Wrinkles in Time (with George Smoot). He is a major contributor of biographical essays on scientists and scholars to Oxford University Press's multivolume American National Biography. show less
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Carl Sagan
- Alternate titles
- Carl Sagan
- Original publication date
- 1999
- People/Characters
- Carl Sagan
- Epigraph
- The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald
Each psyche is really an ant-hill of opposing predispositions. Personality as something with fixed attributes is an illusion.
—Lawrence Durrell - Dedication
- Pollack, James B
National Organisation of Gay and Lesbian Scientists and Technical Professionals Inc. (NOGLSTP)
This book is dedicated to the memory of space scientist James B. Pollack (1938-1994) and to the work of the National Organisation of Gay and Lesbian Scientists and Technical Professionals Inc. (NOGLSTP) in Pasadena, Californi... (show all)a. - First words
- All his life, Carl Sagan was troubled by grand dichotomies—between reason and irrationalism, between wonder and skepticism.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Hardly anyone heard a word, though. Her eyes spoke volumes, but her voice was drowned out by the wind.
- Blurbers
- Clarke, Arthur C.; Carson, Johnny; Krauss, Lawrence M.; Shirley, Donna; Doel, Ronald E.
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 284
- Popularity
- 113,500
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.70)
- Languages
- English, Portuguese, Welsh
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 7
- ASINs
- 2
