Murmurs of Earth: The Voyager Interstellar Record
by Carl Sagan, F D Drake, Ann Druyan, Timothy Ferris, Jon Lomberg, Linda Salzman Sagan
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In 1977, two extraordinary spacecraft called Voyager were launched to the stars. Affixed to each Voyager craft was a gold-coated copped phonograph record as a message to possible extra-terrestrial civilizations that might encounter the spacecraft in some distant space and time. Each record contained 118 photographs of our planet; almost 90 minutes of the world's greatest music; an evolutionary audio essay on "The Sounds of Earth"; and greetings in almost sixty human languages (and one whale show more language). This book is an account, written by those chiefly responsible for the contents of the Voyager Record, of why they did it, how they selected the repertoire, and precisely what the record contains. Introductory music from the original score for COSMOS: A SpaceTime Odyssey composed by Alan Silvestri, used with permission from Cosmos Studios, Inc. and Chappers Music. All rights reserved. Special thanks to Fuzzy Planets, Inc. show lessTags
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I have always been fascinated by the Voyager spacecraft. The thought of those little workhorses still spinning through space decades after being launched, endlessly and patiently faithful to the commands of those who made them and sent them on their way is always incredible to me. And as our first ambassadors to whatever may live beyond our solar system, nothing is more evocative than the little gold record each carries, with the voices, music and images of humanity. The story of how the record was assembled, the difficulties in finding exactly what the creators wanted to put on it, the instances of serendipity where they found content that was perfect by sheer chance, is enthralling . This book is a treasure, and the farther the little show more spacecraft travel into the cosmos, the more precious it will become. show less
After reading this book I know why I only browsed a bit here and there when I first acquired the book. Though I did read the text all the why through and enjoyed much of it, I found myself flipping back and forth to look at various lists, photos, drawings, etc. Murmurs of Earth was something of a walk down memory lane for me as I was studying astronomy during much of the '70's (graduate school) and actually had a slight acquaintance with a handful of the people involved in the Voyager missions ( as I was reminded when I read through the acknowledgments and appendices!). I was also reminded of the conference I attended where Sagan was a featured speaker. This would be a good book for anyone interested in the why and how of the Voyager show more record - Earth's time capsule now traveling through interstellar space. show less
Sagan envisioned the ingenious idea of affixing to the Voyager probes a small gold record containing information about this planet, for its potential recovery by an alien species. This book presents a discussion of the conceptionalization and carrying out of the effort to place this gold record on the two Voyager spacecraft sent outside the Solar System. This Voyager Interstellar Record contained digital information on the planet Earth, including photographs, sounds, music, and greetings in more than 40 languages. It was designed to tell an extraterrestrial intelligence who encountered it something about this planet and the life that thrives here, and to give that life form a general idea of where Earth was located in space.
Wish I could be in on those phone calls between Carl Sagan and Allan Lomax.
where are my stickies!
El libro que recopila la elección de la banda de sonido del disco de oro que viaja en el Voyager.
Nov 1, 2016Spanish
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Author Information
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A respected planetary scientist best known outside the field for his popularizations of astronomy, Carl Sagan was born in New York City on November 9, 1934. He attended the University of Chicago, where he received a B.A. in 1954, a B.S. in 1955, and a M.S. in 1956 in physics as well as a Ph.D. in 1960 in astronomy and astrophysics. He has several show more early scholarly achievements including the experimental demonstration of the synthesis of the energy-carrying molecule ATP (adenosine triphosphate) in primitive-earth experiments. Another was the proposal that the greenhouse effect explained the high temperature of the surface of Venus. He was also one of the driving forces behind the mission of the U.S. satellite Viking to the surface of Mars. He was part of a team that investigated the effects of nuclear war on the earth's climate - the "nuclear winter" scenario. Sagan's role in developing the "Cosmos" series, one of the most successful series of any kind to be broadcast on the Public Broadcasting System, and his book The Dragons of Eden (1977) won the Pulitzer Prize in 1978. He also wrote the novel Contact, which was made into a movie starring Jodie Foster. He died from pneumonia on December 20, 1996. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Timothy Ferris was born on August 29, 1944, in Miami, Florida. He graduated from Northwestern University with a B.A. in 1966 and did graduate work from 1966-1967. Ferris is the author of Coming of Age in the Milky Way, for which he was awarded the American Institute of Physics Prize and nominated for a Pulitzer Prize; The Red Limit; The Whole show more Shebang: A State of the Universe(s) Report; Galaxies; The Mind's Sky; The Science of Liberty: Democracy, Reason, and the Laws of Nature, and other popular books on astronomy and physics. He has received the American Institute of Physics Prize, the American Association for the Advancement of Science Prize, the Klumpke-Roberts Prize, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Books by Ferris have been nominated for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. His PBS special, The Creation of the Universe, won an Emmy nomination in 1986. In addition to his books, Ferris is a former editor of Rolling Stone magazine and has authored more than 100 articles, essays, and reviews in such publications as Esquire, Nature, The New Republic, The New York Times Book Review, and Reader's Digest. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker, writes a column for Scientific American, has served as an essayist for The MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour, and is a commentator for National Public Radio's All Things Considered. Ferris produced the Voyager phonograph record, an artifact of human civilization containing music, the sounds of Earth, and encoded photographs, that was launched aboard the Voyager spacecraft. He serves as a consultant to NASA on long-term space exploration policy. A polymath scholar, Ferris has taught in five disciplines at four universities including City University of New York and University of Southern California. Professor Ferris lives with his wife and family in San Francisco and teaches at the University of California, Berkeley, in the departments of journalism and astronomy, where he is an emeritus professor. (Bowker Author Biography) Timothy Ferris, author of seven books on astronomy, regularly contributes to such publications as The New Yorker, Life, Nature, Esquire, & The New York Times Magazine. He wrote & narrated the award-winning PBS television special "The Creation of the Universe." He lives in San Francisco, California. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Murmurs of Earth: The Voyager Interstellar Record
- Original title
- Murmurs of Earth
- Original publication date
- 1978
- Important events
- Voyager Space mission
- Epigraph
- "I had monuments made of bronze, lapis lazuli, alabaster... and white limestone... and inscriptions of baked clay... I deposited them in the foundations and left them for future times." - Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, seventh ... (show all)century B.C.
- Dedication
- To the makers of music—all worlds, all times
- First words
- On August 20th and September 5th, 1977, two extraordinary spacecraft called Voyager were launched to the stars. (Preface)
In 1939, before my fifth birthday, my parents took me to the New York World's Fair. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)For all the possible vagaries of the message, they could be sure that we were a species endowed with hope and perseverance, at least a little intelligence, substantial generosity and a palpable zest to make contact with the cosmos.
Classifications
- Genres
- Science & Nature, Nonfiction, General Nonfiction
- DDC/MDS
- 001.55 — Computer science, information & general works Computer science, knowledge & systems Knowledge and learning in general [Formerly: Communication] [formerly : Communication through records]
- LCC
- TL789.8 .U6 .V685 — Technology Motor vehicles. Aeronautics. Astronautics Motor vehicles. Aeronautics. Astronautics Astronautics. Space travel
- BISAC
Statistics
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- Reviews
- 6
- Rating
- (4.08)
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- 5 — English, German, Korean, Spanish, Turkish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 18
- UPCs
- 1
- ASINs
- 10
