Carl Sagan would be 77 today. Post a video or quote from him that inspires you.

[nytemare]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luAteAz3WQ0

“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of star stuff.”

[beam me up scottie]

1. Too many to choose from, but I'm very fond of the one in my sig line:

[sarge43]

2. Mine

This is what hydrogen atoms do given 15 billion years of evolution.

[hifiguy]

13. +1

That one still gives me the chills. Dr. Sagan is sorely missed.

[sarge43]

15. First time I heard it on Cosmos, it took my breath away.

The other one: Two photos, the frozen footprints of a early woman and child, the other an astronaut's in moon dust. Sagan, "We have walked far."

He is missed, but he left us a great legacy.

[hifiguy]

16. Carl Sagan made one proud to be a human being.

And the majesty of the universe - even what little we still know of it - is far more awe-inspiring and humbling than the tiny little gods worshiped by fundamentalists of their varied, silly stripes.

[Frank Cannon]

3. "The fact that some geniuses were laughed at...

does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."

--from Broca's Brain

[RedCloud]

4. Billions and billions of stars

Actually I somewhat remember something like in the beginning there was just hydrogen...

[kentauros]

5. Behind the Scenes of Cosmos (SCTV)

Still the best parody :D
Don't know what Sagan thought of it, but would guess he laughed his ass off :rofl:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-67Y0mKLEYA

[jakeXT]

6. Never watched Cosmos, found an episode on youtube, should I watch?

Is there a good one ?


EP 13 Who Speaks for Earth?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_eZjEwmn-Q

[kentauros]

8. I haven't seen it in ages

but I thought it was a great show. Give it a try :D

[nytemare]

10. The whole series is great, here is a link to everything.

http://www.hulu.com/cosmos

I'm not sure I can recommend one episode over any other, they are all well worth views. I have it on DVD and never really tire of it.

[Frank Cannon]

11. I would suggest starting at Episode 1 and watching all of them.

There really isn't a bad episode of Cosmos. My wife and I rewatched the whole series a couple of years ago. After more than 30 years, it's still great.

[sarge43]

12. Yes you should

Some of science is dated now, but the poetry and inspiration is eternal.

[hifiguy]

14. Watch 'em all

But "Who Speaks For the Earth" is an incredibly beauftiful and moving episode. It's worth waiting for.

[BlueIris]

7. My favorite: "By finding out what the other planets are like,

"...by finding out whether there are civilizations on planets among the stars, we reestablish a meaningful context for ourselves."

(Yes, this was referenced on The X-Files...so sue me.)

[a simple pattern]

9. I like this one

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc

[RT Atlanta]

17. A Glorious Dawn (w/ Stephen Hawking)

This is a beautiful short video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc

[Odin2005]

18. "We began as wanderers..."

"Exploration is in our nature. We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for the stars."

"A new consciousness is developing which sees the earth as a single organism and recognizes that an organism at war with itself is doomed. We are one planet. One of the great revelations of the age of space exploration is the image of the earth finite and lonely, somehow vulnerable, bearing the entire human species through the oceans of space and time."

"History is full of people who out of fear or ignorance or the lust for power have destroyed treasures of immeasurable value which truly belong to all of us. We must not let it happen again."

"Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar", every "supreme leader", every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there - on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."

"In some respects, science has far surpassed religion in delivering awe. How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, "This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant. God must be even greater than we dreamed"? Instead they say, "No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way." "

"It is sometimes said that scientists are unromantic, that their passion to figure out robs the world of beauty and mystery. But is it not stirring to understand how the world actually works — that white light is made of colors, that color is the way we perceive the wavelengths of light, that transparent air reflects light, that in so doing it discriminates among the waves, and that the sky is blue for the same reason that the sunset is red? It does no harm to the romance of the sunset to know a little bit about it."

"A scientific colleague tells me about a recent trip to the New Guinea highlands where she visited a stone age culture hardly contacted by Western civilization. They were ignorant of wristwatches, soft drinks, and frozen food. But they knew about Apollo 11. They knew that humans had walked on the Moon. They knew the names of Armstrong and Aldrin and Collins. They wanted to know who was visiting the Moon these days."

[pokerfan]

19. we are the local embodiment of a Cosmos grown to self-awareness...

For we are the local embodiment of a Cosmos grown to self-awareness. We have begun to contemplate our origins: starstuff pondering the stars; organized assemblages of ten billion billion billion atoms considering the evolution of atoms; tracing the long journey by which here at least, consciousness arose. Our loyalties are to the species and the planet. - Carl Sagan