What is Carl Sagan for me

I would be wildly ignorant not to post something about the Carl Sagan Blogathon which is going on all day today, December 20th. There is also a Celebrate Sagan Blog, for those without blogs, to post something about their memories of Sagan.

Where would we be without 'Billions of Billions'? Where would we be without Cosmos? Some of my earlier memories include watching the series and hearing the music that went with it. Hearing Vangelis even now takes me back. I find it somewhat ironic that this week is also when the Russian media is taking a look back at the reign of Leonid Ilych Brezhnev, whose 100th birthday was on the 19th of December.

The very real fear of nuclear holocaust from Brezhnev and the aging generation of Soviets clearly played a part of what Sagan called the 'starship of the imagination' which flew between planets and observed other civilizations, worlds and stars, some at war, some at peace.

In many ways, Sagan's work was the beginning of a process to unite us as a human race, before we embarked on the space race. This day reminds me that I am behind on my reading in a big way, and that we would all be better off if we read a little Sagan now and then. I'll try to update this post with Saganesque links in the next few days.

Update: I found a good quote from the Skeptical Inquirer, which has a long press conference with Carl Sagan. This, I think, is part of the essence of what he stood for, to use science to inspire others.

I think one, perhaps, is to present science as it is, as something dazzling, as something tremendously exciting, as something eliciting feelings of reverence and awe, as something that our lives depend on. If it isn?t presented that way, if it?s presented in very dull textbook fashion, then of course people will be turned off.