Cosmos

Rating:
Summary: The best words ever put in print.
Review: It is almost seven years since the author left us, and considering the magnitude of his accomplishments, no review of them can possibly do them justice. It is doubtful that any other person has instilled as many individuals as the author to enter the scientific profession. But the author has done much more than inspire, for he has given in this book. and the accompanying television series, the most accurate portrayal ever of human history. It is a history of achievement and daring creativity, where war and conflict are in the final analysis very rare. It is a history of confidence and courage to explore new domains. It is a history of both innate and discovered genius, and one where the truth always wins over illusion. There has been much that has been discovered in science since the author has passed on, but I think it can be stated with confidence that he would be both pleased and astonished of just what has been accomplished.

Indeed, look at us now:

....for with steady hands, the biologists are splicing and dicing in our genetic kitchens. Shuffling DNA like a deck of cards, they hybridize our fauna and flora, changing and accelerating their evolution. They extract silk from the udders of goats, make plants intolerant to insects, and they build electronic circuits and cure diseases using viruses, which they also engineer to become our friends, not our foes. With confidence and pride in who we are, we are poised to make copies of ourselves, and choose our progeny's phenotype with ease.Tapping on our keyboards, we blast our way through an enormity of DNA strings, finding similarities of our genes with other lifeforms, and discovering our genetic kinship with all life on Earth. What makes us so can now be put on disk: we can now carry our genome in our pocket.

....with objects that loop around our globe, and with others anchored on its surface, the astronomers have found other worlds orbiting other suns. Turning around our cold-war satellites to look outward instead of downward, they have observed the perplexing gamma ray bursters. Beginning as a journey with the naked eye, our technology has expanded our vision across the whole spectrum. Looking up has always been a habit with us. Our evolved up-right posture is a cause and proof of our optimism and confidence. We are natural astronomers.

....the engineers, the computer and cognitive scientists, are teaching machines to think, to talk, to dance, to play cards, to sing, to compose music, to trade, to read and write novels and poetry, to prove theorems, to diagnose our diseases, to judge our cases, to manage our networks, to discover and classify new objects in the heavens and in our accelerators . We find exhiliration in the presence of the silicon geniuses. Their minds are a reflection of ours. In space travel they have become our surrogates.

.....banging gold atoms, electrons, and protons together, the physicists are finding out the patterns of nature. They celebrate the creation of the gluon plasma and the detection of the flavors of neutrinos. Stopping light in matter, they bring about the long anticipated condensation of Bose. With understanding of the world of the small increasing steadily each decade, attention is turned to its engineering, to the rise of the nanomachines.

....we have all hooked up to the Internet spider. We send messages to others half-way around the world. We ping our friends and relatives with our images and our words. Immersing ourselves in exabytes of information, we google through it with delight. The Web has become our playground, our shopping center, our bank, and our oracle....

Indeed, as the author points out in the last chapter of the book, we have walked far. We now sit on the knee of an exponential curve. We become exhilirated at the prospect of whirlwind scientific and technological development. We are confident that this century will be even more breathtaking than the last.

The book summarizes what is best not only about science but also about human existence. Written by one man, it speaks accurately about all humankind. Consisting only of a few hundred pages, it says in print what the vast majority of humans have done throughout history. The author will always be one of my heros, for his optimism in unequaled and his respect for truth constant through time. He explains with joyous enthusiasm the gentle stirring, that quiet feeling of understanding something for the first time: the rhyme and romance of scientific discovery.

Rating:
Summary: The book that changed my life.
Review: I don't know where I would be today had I not read this book when I was 17... It is the one book I could say that altered my path in life immensely. To put it simply, it's the history of cosmic evolution, life and humanity... Not only that, but I'd say it gives some pretty good quesses as to where humanity's future lies.

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Summary: Cosmos illuminates with beauty, courage, and passion.
Review: A comprehensive introduction to the subject of Humanity, ranging from Science to religion, from history to art. Every chapter brims with humanity's soaring passion to know the world as it is, not how we wish it to be. And with it comes a lesson of humility. His writing is graced with unsurpassing clarity and beauty. A must read for all ages.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing, couldn't put it down.
Review: The pictures Carl Sagan paints are unforgettable. The descriptions of Jupiter, Venus, and Mars, the imaginative portrayals of extra-terrestial life, and the vast wealth of knowledge (explained at a level for the lamen) is just the icing on the cake. His insightful statements about the way our own world is progressing is serious cause for reflection. I was so inspired by this book that I actually wrote a review for it (I have never written one before). I would highly recommend this to anyone of my friends. It's as much of a book about astronomy and science in general as it is a anylasis of our global social, religious, and political culture.

Rating:
Summary: A classic of popular science
Review: This book should be required reading for every citizen of planet Earth. Although written a quarter of a century ago, it has lost little of its applicability. If anything, the occasional references to the Cold War simply remind us of the fragility of our modest planet. Although a fair portion of the material will be familiar to those who often read science books for laypeople, it is presented in a way that fascinates and entices. Books like these help us to understand who we are, whence we came, and whither we go.

The photos and paintings in this edition are beautiful and complement the text perfectly. The structure of the book follows the content elegantly, and the prose is lucid. It is a pity that Carl Sagan is no longer at hand to speak to the newest generation of humans; I wonder what his clear voice would have to say about the newest findings in astronomy, and about the newest happenings in our world.

This book is a reminder of our heritage, sometimes brighter than we now can know, sometimes dark enough to chill our souls with the thoughts of the evils committed by our ancestors. It is a warning too, for it reminds us that we have the frightening technology to destroy ourselves. But it is also a beacon of hope, for it reminds us that we have the choice of whether to allow our civilization to fade into obscurity, or to settle our earthly differences and commit ourselves to our best destiny, a future among the stars.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining and informative
Review: This book is extremely entertaining and thoroughly entertaining. Sagan philosophizes while he backs up his theories with scientific evidence. If you're not interested in astronomy now, you will be after you've read this book.

Rating:
Summary: Billions and billions...
Review: How many people who watched the 'Cosmos' series on television (PBS in America - perhaps the best astronomy and general science series ever produced by them) could ever forget Carl Sagan's intonation at proclaiming the wonders of the universe in grand terms, billions and billions of stars and galaxies and planets (and consequently, everything else).

While this book was published in 1980 to be a companion to the television series, there is nonetheless a certain timelessness about it. Many science texts (even general readers such as this) become dated fairly quickly. Yet this book remains a volume to which I refer time and again for its history, philosophy and insight into scientific method and personality.

This book more than anything provided the inspiration for me to study astronomy. While I did not take a degree in it (when I arrived at university I was informed that I had already studied more than their undergraduate curriculum provided; that I should take some physics and mathematics courses and then take a Master's degree later if interested--which may happen after the my current degree progress is completed), my interest in astronomy has remained strong and permeates many of my other interests, including my current work in theology and philosophy.

The visual presentation of this book is stunning. Pictures, particularly those from telescopes, space probes, and dramatic artistic renderings of phenomena not yet captured on film give a real feel for the subject.

Sagan begins the book with a grand tour of the universe, starting at the outermost edges with quasars and unknowns, and travelling back through galaxies and stars, passing interesting objects such as nebulae, black holes, stellar nurseries, planetary systems, finally to arrive back on earth, the unique planet (from our perspective) because it has life.

From here, Sagan goes back in history to the great library of Alexandria, which remains an object of fascination (current archaeological excavations continue in Alexandria, and there are various plans for memorialising the library). He introduces early efforts at scientific method and investigation by discussing Eratosthenes, a librarian who investigated reports in the various texts for himself, rather than taking things at face value.

Chapters include explorations of planetary astronomy, with special attention to Mars; stellar astronomy and the life cycle of stars; issues of space and time; issues of observation and epistemology (how do we know what we know, and why do we think we know it?); the origin and fate of the universe; the idea of life on other planets (Sagan confesses to a prejudice--the idea that life must be based on carbon, and not other elements); and the idea of SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) which due to Sagan's work and influence continues today in various ways around the globe. Finally, Sagan discusses the politics of science (and politics in general) giving a cautious hope for the fate of the earth--this was the height of the Cold War, after all.

'We are the local embodiment of a Cosmos grown to self-awareness. We have begun to contemplate our origins: starstuff pondering the stars; organised assemblages of ten billion billion billion atoms considering the evolution of atoms; tracing the long journey which, here at least, consciousness arose. Our loyalties are to the species and the planet. We speak for Earth. Our obligation to survive is owed not just to ourselves but also to that Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring.'

Intelligent, written with grace and humour, the narrative is largely non-technical but not condescending and lends itself well to understanding.

Rating:
Summary: "All that is"
Review: As one of the great astronomer-writers of the Twentieth Century, Carl Sagan was extraordinarily communicative with the non-scientific public, able and willing to take the time and trouble to break down the mysteries of the universe into comprehensible fragments. The purpose of this book, which can be considered a companion to the acclaimed television series, is to explain what we know about the universe from a cosmological perspective and why we need to know more about it.

Physicists often talk of the unity of the branches of physics: the interrelation and application of mechanics, thermodynamics, electricity and magnetism, and optics to the motion of everything from galaxies to subatomic particles. Similarly, Sagan's major theme is the unity of cosmology with the natural and physical sciences that define what we know about the Earth. Does the stifling, carbon dioxide-choked atmosphere of Venus imply anything about the greenhouse effect on Earth? Was a nearby cosmic explosion called a supernova indirectly responsible for the disappearance of the dinosaurs? What would be the biological consequences for the survivors of a global nuclear war? The answers to these questions are vital to the continuation of life as we know it.

Sagan also identifies cosmology with its own history. He lavishes reverent detail on the ancient Greek and Alexandrian study of the stars and planetary motions, the pioneering work by the Renaissance scientists Brahe, Kepler, Copernicus, Huygens, and others, and the men who revolutionized science with the formulation of laws of motion, Newton and Einstein.

The scope of "Cosmos" is tremendous, from the farthest expanses of the universe containing a hundred billion galaxies in addition to our own Milky Way, at the end of a spiraling arm of which our solar system is located; down to the lone electron circling the nucleus of a hydrogen atom, the most plentiful single entity in the cosmos and the source of everything we know, love, and are. In between there is discussion of the unmanned spacecraft expeditions to investigate "our" planets: Mars with its boulder-strewn, desert-like terrain; the gaseous giant Jupiter; Io, a Jovian moon of incredible redness, spotted with volcanic orifices and resembling an unappealing sauce-covered meatball; Saturn with its ice rings. Would these worlds contain life? Using what we know about the evolution of life on Earth, Sagan hypothesizes how different types of lifeforms might develop on worlds with different environments.

Even a casual interest in cosmology requires a fascination with astronomical distances and unthinkably long spans of time in which a human lifetime is but a blink of an eye. However, Sagan seems to write also for those who would rather relate cosmic arcana to familiar terms, and in this sense he is a grand entertainer: A thought experiment that provides a simple but fanciful illustration of the concept of black holes uses the tea party scene in "Alice in Wonderland" as a setting. "Cosmos" neither complicates unnecessarily nor insults your intelligence; very few "popular" science books will capture your imagination so well.

Rating:
Summary: Good episodes
Review: I liked this series on television. It showed 3 times. However, the last 2 repeats included updates at the end of a few episodes, like the ones about Venus and Mars. This book excludes those updates. (It's probably the same with other editions, and the video/DVD sets.)

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant!
Review: Carl Sagan was, if this book is any example, an extremely intelligent and caring man. His voice intertwines the stories of history, philosophy, and science, and every sentence is both brilliant and fascinating. But the best thing about Cosmos is that it makes ME feel really smart. I can follow everything Sagan says, even though it's some pretty deep stuff, because he's so good at telling it on the level of the intelligent, interested layman. The last few chapters of the book may seem dated, but they really aren't; the "enemy" has changed but the issues are still the same. I heartily recommend this book for anyone who is the least bit interested in science. It is wonderful!