Buy from Other Retailers:. Jul 06, ISBN Paperback —. Also by Carl Sagan. Product Details. Inspired by Your Browsing History. Related Articles. Looking for More Great Reads? Download Hi Res. Get the latest updates from Carl Sagan. The book has 13 chapters , which match up with the 13 episodes of the documentary series. Subscribe to EnglishClub Podcasts. And about the life in other planets, I think that there is life in other planets, maybe some microorganisms or animals, and will be so interesting if one day we know more about the existence of others beings out of the Earth planet.
Thank you so much. More of this will enhance my listening and increase also my comprehension skills. I love this listening that give me a general knowledge that is not easy to find in news. Great work. Not only can it serve as a friendly, accessible, and engrossing jumping-off point for we common folk who are interested in delving deeper into science but may feel a bit intimidated, it is also, if nothing else, worth reading for the beautifully poignant and evocative insights and the oft-philosophical tidbits contained therein.
We have begun to contemplate our origins: starstuff pondering the stars However, I can concede on this last point that, at the time of publication, the aftermath of a full-scale nuclear war was perhaps still a pretty hot topic. And in the grand scheme, these negative points make up only a negligible fraction of this otherwise fantastic book, and do not in anyway detract from its intrinsic value or from its overall enjoyability. All in all, Cosmos is a thoroughly enthralling read that takes you on a breath-taking journey from the inception of the Universe to futures that may never be, and allows us to ponder--when considering our own epic journey from starstuff to "assemblages of a billion billion billion atoms contemplating the evolution of atoms"--what it truly means to be human and what our place, our purpose, is in the vast expanse of "this Cosmos in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky".
View 1 comment. Nov 17, picoas picoas rated it liked it Shelves: If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review. These flaws center on either Sagan's unusual speaking style and acting? I certainly agree that he looks stupid when displaying the "awed" look; however, the complaints about the content of his shows are not justified.
Yes, he is short on reasons and long o If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review. Yes, he is short on reasons and long on visual effects, and, yes, he talks as if the viewer did not know the obvious.
What we are all forgetting is this: the average person doesn't know what we would consider "obvious". We should realize that Carl Sagan has his work cut out for him making science digestible for the average person. View all 5 comments. A five stars to this book. Stars borrowed from skies that I witnessed when I was eight or maybe ten and would wake up early at pre-dawn, because that was the best time for star gazing after all.
To read Mr. Sagan, the words so simple describing the Universe so complex. To read a small passage and follow it up with a sleep filled with dreams of all those stars dying and being born every passing moment. To recall, days of childish innocence gazing towards the infinite. Gazing in anticipation of recog A five stars to this book.
Gazing in anticipation of recognizing a constellation or an anticipated meteor shower. To pause while reading and reflect, wonder. To attempt understanding things with closed eyes. To hear back from the infinite, after all these many years. Because thoughts might after all travel through vacuum. To think what has been thought centuries ago, but not by you yet. To take a possibility, and create countless possibilities. To be curious, to question. To look at things with not just your eyes.
To be looked back from an infinite distance, with your own eyes. To the journeys we could take each night, only if we gave ourselves the chance to.
To Pause. To realize that this moment ephemeral as it is, and only one among a multiple of possible moments,still IS. View all 19 comments. Aug 10, Z rated it it was amazing Recommends it for: Absolutely everybody. Shelves: , favourites. Let's put it simply. Cosmos is required reading for everyone who lives on this planet. It will give you a sense of perspective that nothing else can -- no lofty ideology, no omniscient religion, no inspiring quotations can explain things quite as clearly as Carl Sagan's treatise on science, reality, and the nature of things in this universe.
Mind-bending and dazzling, and best of all, uncluttered by confusing scientific terminology. A book worthy of all the positive superlatives I can think of b Let's put it simply. A book worthy of all the positive superlatives I can think of bestowing on it. We have held the peculiar notion that a person or society that is a little different from us, whoever we are, is somehow strange or bizarre, to be distrusted or loathed.
Think of the negative connotations of words like alien or outlandish. And yet the monuments and cultures of each of our civilisations merely represent different ways of being human. An extraterrestrial visitor, looking at the differences among human beings and their societies, would find those differences trivial compared to the similarities.
The Cosmos may be densey populated with intelligent beings. But the Darwinian lesson is clear: There will be no humans elsewhere. Only here. Only on this small planet.
We are a rare as well as an endangered species. Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. Jul 29, Max rated it it was amazing Shelves: physics. Sagan explores the history and future of cosmology with wonder and foreboding in this slightly dated but insightful and still highly relevant mix of science and philosophy.
He begins with the story of Eratosthenes, the first to calculate the circumference of the earth in the third century BCE. His instruments were two sticks. He placed one vertically in the ground at the summer solstice on the equator and a second kilometers north.
At noon the first would give no shadow but the angle of the Sagan explores the history and future of cosmology with wonder and foreboding in this slightly dated but insightful and still highly relevant mix of science and philosophy. At noon the first would give no shadow but the angle of the shadow of the second would correspond to that segment of the earth. Divide the angle 7 degrees into , multiply it by and you are pretty close to the actual circumference.
Simple but brilliant! In the 6th century BCE Thales, Anaximander, and Pythagoras began laying the foundations of modern scientific thought from astronomy to mathematics to biology. Sagan points to the destruction of the library at Alexandria in the fourth century CE as a final blow to learning symbolizing the beginning of the Dark Ages.
It would be another 1, years for this ancient knowledge to be rediscovered although much would be lost forever.
Sagan suggests the rise of slavery led to the demise of the Ionian scientists. Slavery obviated the need for technology and set up the need for clear lines of demarcation of class to justify it. Thus working with the hands, engaging in ungentlemanly activity was wrong.
Religion was employed to rationalize the institution. Today we are familiar with a more recent example, the antebellum South which failed to industrialize due to its reliance on slavery and ended up falling far behind the North.
Sagan covers the 16th and 17th century contributions of Copernicus, Brahe, Kepler, and Newton. He presents the then current ideas on the nature of the universe discussing stars, space, time and the exploration of the galaxy.
Sagan is particularly focused on the use of radio astronomy not only to identify far flung civilizations but to contact them. Cosmos was written before string theory, the multiverse, supersymmetry, dark matter, dark energy and the Higgs boson became hot topics.
Still his discussion holds up well. Sagan is enamored with interacting with other civilizations. I am not sure this is a good idea but danger from aliens seems far less likely than danger from our fellow man. In trying to calculate the number of advanced civilizations in the universe, a key factor is how long a civilization can last before it destroys itself.
We have only very recently gotten to the point where we can reach out to other worlds and between climate change, nuclear war, and other self-destructive behavior our future is clearly tenuous. Sagan takes this worry very seriously and persuades me to as well.
Perhaps our search for intelligent life on other worlds has borne no fruit because intelligent life is a misnomer. View all 8 comments. Carl Sagan was a good writer. For a scientist, his prose had a literary style that is enjoyable to read, and he injected a sense of philosophy into his passionate account of the origins and marvels of the cosmos.
I do find that the delivery was quite heavy-handed in trying to instill that sense of awe and wonder into the reader. What made it even more so was the narrator whose intonation carries a quality of breathless resonance. The arrangement of the subject matter also seemed a bit haphazard Carl Sagan was a good writer. The arrangement of the subject matter also seemed a bit haphazard in my view. I couldn't help comparing this book to a favourite of mine - A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson which was organised, concise, informative, and very entertaining.
Regardless, Cosmos is still a good primer to read for those who are interested in learning more about the universe and our world before venturing into more recent writings from the likes of Stephen Hawkings may he rest in peace and Neil deGrasse Tyson. View all 7 comments. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us - there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height.
We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries. A peak into the Cosmos. Sagan is a poet-scientist, he uses beautiful metaphors and aphorisms that are never too far from what an ordinary person can grasp. The style is lucid. Building on the works of geniuses who introduced us to this fascinating, mind boggling universe of ours. Kepler gave us the laws of planetary motion.
Laws that not just explained the elliptical orbit of Earth, but inspired a generation of mathematicians and physicists to inquire further into the nature and behaviour of the heavenly bodies. A world so strange, complex and inaccessible has been made fascinating, understandable and rather accessible by the works of men and women who devoted their lives to Science and Cosmos.
A world that is far more rich and awe-inspiring than the meagre and myth-ridden fairytales that we content ourselves with. We settle for too little. He admits that as a child, he spent hours contemplating about the possibility of intelligent life on other planets.
Although our search for intelligent life has been a failure even on Earth , Sagan aspires to make contact with the dwellers of distant worlds. Space travel and Alien Contact are not stuff of science fiction anymore but a possibility in waiting. The concluding chapters touch on two matters of colossal significance, namely Nuclear Weapons and Climate Change.
These two man-made disasters are a ticking time bomb that can obliterate our species, and we have done precious little to stop them. We are destroying this planet, poisoning our oceans and destroying Specie after specie for centuries now. Man is without a doubt the most deadly predator in the history of Earth Life. And now we are on the path to self-annihilation. And this book is a wakeup call. A world ridden with ignorance and greed, will need to forego the idiotic bliss of being certain about everything.
A good question is often times more educating than its answer. How can we love this world if we are awaiting an apocalypse, how can we love our environment and its safe keepers, the plants and the animals, without recognising that they are our distant cousins. Life, wherever it exists on this planet, is our kin. And we are bullying, butchering and asphyxiating it everywhere. What a shame! This is the kind of book that we must read and re-read. A book we must gift our children on their 12th birthdays.
Because Carl Sagan does more than just educate you about the wonders of Science and the Universe; he makes you fall in love with it. View 2 comments. I really enjoyed this! Sagan presents each topic in a clear and concise manner. His passion for science and wonderful writing made this an enjoyable reading experience. Feb 28, Bettie rated it really liked it Shelves: autumn , entomology , re-visit , nonfiction , beautifully-put , dinosaurs , casual-violence , environmental-issues , epic-proportions , history.
Re-visit 1: The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean: After an introduction by Ann Druyan, including the benefits of the end of the Cold War, Carl Sagan opens the program with a description of the cosmos and a "Spaceship of the Imagination" shaped like a dandelion seed.
Eratosthenes' attempt to calculate the circum Re-visit 1: The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean: After an introduction by Ann Druyan, including the benefits of the end of the Cold War, Carl Sagan opens the program with a description of the cosmos and a "Spaceship of the Imagination" shaped like a dandelion seed. Eratosthenes' attempt to calculate the circumference of Earth leads to a description of the ancient Library of Alexandria.
Finally, the "Ages of Science" are described, before pulling back to the full span of the Cosmic Calendar. Among the topics are the development of life on the Cosmic Calendar and the Cambrian explosion; the function of DNA in growth; genetic replication, repairs, and mutation; the common biochemistry of terrestrial organisms; the creation of the molecules of life in the Miller-Urey experiment; and speculation on alien life such as life in Jupiter's clouds.
It moves to a description of the environment of Venus, from the previous fantastic theories of people such as Immanuel Velikovsky to the information gained by the Venera landers and its implications for Earth's greenhouse effect. The Cosmos Update highlights the connection to global warming. It then moves to Robert Goddard's early experiments in rocket-building, inspired by reading science fiction, and the work by Mars probes, including the Viking, searching for life on Mars.
The episode ends with the possibility of the terraforming and colonization of Mars and a Cosmos Update on the relevance of Mars' environment to Earth's and the possibility of a manned mission to Mars.
Their discoveries are compared to the Voyager probes' discoveries among the Jovian and Saturn systems. In Cosmos Update, image processing reconstructs Voyager's worlds and Voyager's last portrait of the Solar System as it leaves is shown. Definitely need an up-to-date version with all that has been discovered since this was published in Sep 12, Tony rated it it was amazing Recommends it for: anyone with an interest in science.
Shelves: science. The best book ever written. A masterful work encompassing the whole of human existence and the universe, with a focus on science.
Sagan discusses - evolution, - Kepler, astrology and acceptance of truth in spite of what outcome is desired, - Venus and Mars, including the made-up belief of life on Mars a century ago, - the Voyager spacecrafts' Grand Tour of the Outer Planets a rare alignment , - ancient Greek scientists, - Relativity, - atoms, elements, and how star make them, - Creation Myths, incl Hin The best book ever written.
As a child, I was fascinated and mesmerised by our world. It looked so huge, so full of wonders. The world, the Earth, waited to be discovered and I had a long life ahead of me to do that. Then, in teenage years, I already knew all there was to know about life, people, the Earth and the Universe.
Nobody could tell me any better. The new source of wonder had become love — falling in love, finding the purpose in another human being, the complete m As a child, I was fascinated and mesmerised by our world. The new source of wonder had become love — falling in love, finding the purpose in another human being, the complete merging of body and soul.
Once I entered the world of adults, I realised that I knew nothing. I strived for a higher purpose which, it turned out, was extremely hard to find in between a daily job that gives you no thrill, the same four walls you hide behind every night, and the usual faces that say the same words day in day out.
The mundanity and routine that sustain a human life make it really hard to notice this same life. And then I started to seek answers, cosmic answers.
Suddenly, it feels like a meteorite has hit my little planet. I feel like a child again! I feel in love again! I feel my senses being heightened and my pulse rushing. Carl Sagan made me feel like a scientist. For I have made a wonderful discovery - the nutrient of my little earthly life is curiosity — no step for the Cosmos, one giant leap for the cosmic speck of dust that I am.
I could talk for hours about how beautiful and captivating I found Cosmos to be. It made me crave knowledge of the unknown. It made my underdeveloped imagination burst with colourful visions. It made my stunted mind race. I savoured every word, embraced every idea.
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