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Posted by: Steffen Mar 18 2006, 06:21 PM

Which is in Your opinion the best Sagan biography ?

By The Way, is the DonDavis on this forum by any chance the Donald Davis of:
http://www.donaldedavis.com/PARTS/SAGAN.html

Posted by: Bob Shaw Mar 18 2006, 06:30 PM

It is indeed!

Bob Shaw

Posted by: ectoterrestrial Mar 18 2006, 06:35 PM

I read both of them years back after reading a review of both. The best, I think it's called "A life in the cosmos". Best part for me was a history of the viking mission science teams operations.

Posted by: AlexBlackwell Mar 18 2006, 06:44 PM

For me, this one is easy: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0471252867/sr=8-48/qid=1142706988/ref=sr_1_48/002-5550557-6348835?%5Fencoding=UTF8 by Keay Davidson. Not only is the book highly informative, more importantly, it's not a hagiography. Davidson's balanced account gives the good and the bad, both professionally and personally.

Posted by: ljk4-1 Mar 18 2006, 07:00 PM

I found Poundstone's book to be more focused on Sagan's science
accomplishments while not ignoring his personal life - but he also did
not get tabloidish about it, whereas Davidson seemed to almost relish
pointing out the downside of virtually everything Sagan did and said,
making a number of questionable psychological analyses along the way.

But they are both very interesting reads about a very interesting and
dynamic life.

The point is, Sagan was a human being, not an applicant for sainthood,
and what matters is that he did a LOT for promoting science to the public
as well as making a lot of science possible. He cared about what he did
and he could translate his work to the public - definitely not a collection
of skills that is owned by many other scientists to this day.

There is also a new book out - a collection of interviews with Carl Sagan
from the early 1970s until 1995:

http://www.upress.state.ms.us/catalog/fall2005/conv_carl_sagan.html

I hope some day someone will come out with a collection of all of Sagan's
hundreds of technical science papers, which date back to the early 1960s.
I have only seen a few of them.

Posted by: PhilCo126 Mar 18 2006, 07:15 PM

sure thing ljk4-1, on one of the CD-ROMs of the paperback NASA mission reports books there's a video showing a young Carl Sagan talking about the atmosphere of the planet Venus ...
It would be great to read his science papers and to see every video made about him

I've noticed the book with the interviews of Sagan but when I bought a biography of Sagan I also choose the " Carl Sagan, a life " because it was almost 600 pages while most others didn't have 200 pages or so ...

Nice to know DonDavis is THE Donald Davis, who had good contacts with the late Carl Sagan. He must have a story to tell?

Posted by: ljk4-1 Mar 19 2006, 06:41 PM

If you scroll down most of the way on this Web page:

http://astro.uchicago.edu/home/web/RAS/

You will see some of Carl Sagan's earliest writings from
when he was a student at the University of Chicago.

He got better.

Posted by: ectoterrestrial Mar 19 2006, 07:41 PM

Yeah, I agree ljk. It's not as if Poundstones book doesn't cover the "tabloid" worthy aspects of his life, it just doesn't spotlight them. We're reading about him not because he was a famous serial divorcee, but because he's a popular astronomer who influenced many of us at young ages. I still remember seeing an epidode of Cosmos on PBS when I was rather young, and not remembering or understanding the concepts covered, but knowing that this is possible. That this was reality as opposed to Dr. Who which even at about 6, I knew was fantasy.

Posted by: ljk4-1 Mar 20 2006, 05:11 PM

Speaking of Don Davis:

Space Settlement: The Call of the High Frontier

http://www.space.com/adastra/adastra_dondavis_060320.html

Don Davis (donaldedavis.com) is the artist most responsible for making space
colonies look like a good place to live. He won an Emmy for his work on Carl
Sagan's TV series Cosmos. Today he is the leading astronomical artist for
full-dome theater shows in planetariums worldwide.

Posted by: ljk4-1 Mar 21 2006, 08:19 PM

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1960 April; 46(4): 393–396.

INDIGENOUS ORGANIC MATTER ON THE MOON

Carl Sagan

YERKES OBSERVATORY, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, WILLIAMS BAY, WISCONSIN
PHYSICS RESEARCH DEPARTMENT, ARMOUR RESEARCH FOUNDATION, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=222849

Posted by: AlexBlackwell Mar 21 2006, 08:33 PM

Below is a post of mine I dug up from September 2002 (in another group obviously) responding to someone else's claim (preceded by >) of Sagan's lack of scholarship. Of course, Sagan's CV was, I believe, over a hundred pages long.

======================================================

> It's interesting - despite all the respect people have for the man
> as a scientific thinker - the last time i checked
> www.carlsagan.com, there wasn't a single reference that i could
> find to a true scientific paper...

Frankly, I think that is a trite unfair to Sagan's memory, though I'm
not sure what your definition of a "true scientific paper" is.
However, even a cursory glance at the archives of [for example] the journal Science
(presumably this qualifies as a "true" science journal) turns up
several papers (a few listed below) where Sagan is a primary or co-
author (omitted are "spacecraft team" papers which typically have
more than a dozen authors):

Color and Chemistry on Triton (in Reports)
W. Reid Thompson, Carl Sagan
Science, New Series, Vol. 250, No. 4979. (Oct. 19, 1990), pp. 415-418.

Cyclic Octatomic Sulfur: A Possible Infrared and Visible Chromophore
in the Clouds of Jupiter (in Reports)
B. N. Khare, Carl Sagan
Science, New Series, Vol. 189, No. 4204. (Aug. 29, 1975), pp. 722-723.

Hot Hydrogen in Prebiological and Interstellar Chemistry (in Reports)
Carl Sagan, Ralph S. Becker
Science, New Series, Vol. 188, No. 4183. (Apr. 4, 1975), pp. 72-73.

Jovian Atmosphere: Structure and Composition between the Turbopause
and the Mesopause (in Reports)
Carl Sagan, Joseph Veverka, Lawrence Wasserman, James Elliot, William
Liller
Science, New Series, Vol. 184, No. 4139. (May 24, 1974), pp. 901-903.

Climatic Change on Mars (in Reports)
Carl Sagan, O. B. Toon, P. J. Gierasch
Science, New Series, Vol. 181, No. 4104. (Sep. 14, 1973), pp. 1045-
1049.

Earth and Mars: Evolution of Atmospheres and Surface Temperatures (in
Reports)
Carl Sagan, George Mullen
Science, New Series, Vol. 177, No. 4043. (Jul. 7, 1972), pp. 52-56.

Long-Wavelength Ultraviolet Photoproduction of Amino Acids on the
Primitive Earth (in Reports)
Carl Sagan, Bishun N. Khare
Science, New Series, Vol. 173, No. 3995. (Jul. 30, 1971), pp. 417-420.

Contamination of Mars
Carl Sagan, Elliott C. Levinthal, Joshua Lederberg
Science, New Series, Vol. 159, No. 3820. (Mar. 15, 1968), pp. 1191-
1196.

Jovian Atmosphere: Near-Ultraviolet Absorption Features (in Reports)
Carl Sagan, Tobias Owen, Jack A. Greenspan
Science, New Series, Vol. 159, No. 3813. (Jan. 26, 1968), pp. 448-450.

Martian Ionosphere: A Component Due to Solar Protons (in Reports)
Carl Sagan, Joseph Veverka
Science, New Series, Vol. 158, No. 3797. (Oct. 6, 1967), pp. 110-112.

Posted by: odave Mar 22 2006, 01:38 AM

I've often had to scratch my head at the way some have just dumped all over Carl. Astronomy and other space sciences were a passing interest in my childhood, but that interest was permanently cemented when I watched Cosmos back when it first aired. Whatever his faults, he was a darned fine and inspiring communicator. I'll always be grateful for the way he opened up the universe to me.

Posted by: PhilCo126 Mar 22 2006, 01:27 PM

Some interesting links:
http://www.obits.com/sagancar.htm

http://www.bluepoint.gen.tr/sagan/

Best regards,
Philip

Posted by: ljk4-1 Mar 22 2006, 02:57 PM

Professional jealousy at Sagan's success and fame, disappointment at his not
being a saint, his constant promotion of astrobiology, SETI, and evolution, his
saying that nuclear war might be even worse than thought (as if a "typical"
nuclear attack would somehow be okay - "No more than 10 to 20 million dead,
tops!"), his agnostic views on God and religion, his support of marijuana, his
two divorces, his very distinctive way of speaking - take your pick.

Look at the people in history who made real strides for humanity and science.
You will find very few shrinking wallflowers and sheep in that group.

Posted by: PhilCo126 Mar 24 2006, 07:01 PM

He was a special human being ... but a human being just like all of us
Back on-topic
The ' Carl Sagan, a life ' by Keay Davidson (Wiley 1999 - ISBN 0-471-25286-7) also has a good photo section of about 16 pages, another reason to buy this book
Philip

Posted by: Bill Harris Mar 24 2006, 09:04 PM

>I've often had to scratch my head at the way some have just dumped all over Carl. Astronomy and other space sciences ...

If one is in the limelight, one can become a moving target for the have-nots. He was a good scientist and thinker but also a better showman. Although his contributions to science have been stellar, his "billyuns and billyuns" monologue is an easier target for detractors. Sagan was not a saint nor a demon; he was simply one of the many primates here trying to figure out how things tick.

My question for the detractors? What will you be remembered for after you're dead and buried?

--Bill

Posted by: ljk4-1 Apr 4 2006, 07:47 PM

Three of Dr. Sagan's later technical papers are online here:


Title: The Deflection Dilemma: Use Vs. Misuse of Technologies for Avoiding Interplanetary Collision Hazards
Authors: Harris, A.
Canavan, G.
Sagan, C.
Ostro, S.
Issue Date: 1994
Citation: University of Arizona Space Science Series
Abstract: A system capable of deflecting a Near-Earth Object (NEO) out of a Earth-impacting trajectory could also be used to deflect a non-menacing NEO so it impacts the Earth.
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2014/33485

http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/handle/2014/33485


Title: Long-Range Consequences of Interplanetary Collisions
Authors: Sagan, C.
Ostro, S.
Issue Date: 1994
Citation: Issues in Science and Technology
Abstract: As Comet shoemaker-Levy 9 races toward its mid-July collision with the planet Jupiter, considerable public attention is being focused on catastrophic impacts with the Earth.
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2014/33108

http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/handle/2014/33108


Title: Cosmic Collisions and the Longevity of Non-Spacefaring Galactic Civilizations
Authors: Ostro, S. H.
Sagan, C.
Issue Date: May-1998
Citation: Astrodynamics and Geophysics
USA
Abstract: Interplanetary collision hazards in many planetary systems force civilizations to become spacefaring or extinct. This selection pressure apparently acts on a timescale of 10***sup5*** years on Earth's current human civilization, but may act on shorter or longer timescales elsewhere.
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2014/19498

http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/handle/2014/19498

Posted by: ljk4-1 May 16 2006, 06:40 PM

A new book based on lectures made by Sagan over twenty years ago will be
coming out this fall.

To quote:

"The book, due for publication in November by The Penguin Press, is based on a series of talks Sagan gave at the University of Glasgow in 1985 as part of the Gifford Lectures on natural theology. After lying hidden for decades in Sagan's archives, the transcripts of the nine taped lectures were rediscovered just a few months ago, said Ann Druyan, the scientist's widow and longtime collaborator."

The full article:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12586173/#060502a

Posted by: PhilCo126 Dec 22 2006, 05:22 PM

It has been 10 years since Dr Carl SAGAN deceased... Check the blog by Ann Druyan to read about her "Ten times around the Sun without Carl..."

http://www.carlsagan.com/

Posted by: Stu Dec 22 2006, 05:31 PM

Earlier this week there was a global "Blog-a-thon", with Bloggers all around the world encouraged to write about Carl Sagan and his influence on them/their memories of him. You can read my contribution here http://journals.aol.com/stuartatk/Cumbrian-Sky/entries/2006/12/20/remembering-carl-sagan.../2254 and at the bottom there's a link to the Blog-a-thon site for those who want to contribute; it's not too late...

Posted by: AlexBlackwell Jan 30 2007, 01:08 AM

Sorry to dig up this old thread but there was a http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/26/AR2007012600002.html of this book in this weekend's edition of The Washington Post Book World.