Sagan, Eternal We lost Carl Sagan 16 years ago today. He has touched people’s lives, in life and in death, in ways that are difficult to put in to words. He was not only a wonderful teacher, but also someone who lit the fires of curiosity in those who learned from him. In that way, we have each been able to light our way to new knowledge, on paths of our own design. If I am a teacher of any measure, in any form, it is because of people like Carl Sagan. Remember him with this beautiful animated rendition of his finest ode to the cosmos, Pale Blue Dot: I’ll leave this open for replies, a tribute wall to Carl Sagan. I’d love to hear your thoughts and remembrances. If Carl was here today, what would you say to him?
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Sagan, Eternal

We lost Carl Sagan 16 years ago today. He has touched people’s lives, in life and in death, in ways that are difficult to put in to words. He was not only a wonderful teacher, but also someone who lit the fires of curiosity in those who learned from him. In that way, we have each been able to light our way to new knowledge, on paths of our own design.

If I am a teacher of any measure, in any form, it is because of people like Carl Sagan.

Remember him with this beautiful animated rendition of his finest ode to the cosmos, Pale Blue Dot:

I’ll leave this open for replies, a tribute wall to Carl Sagan. I’d love to hear your thoughts and remembrances. If Carl was here today, what would you say to him?

Happy Birthday, Ray Bradbury: Some Unpublished Poems and a Meditation on Science vs. Religion

Happy Birthday, Ray Bradbury!

Sorry you’re gone from this Earth. Like an interstellar traveler, seeding our immortality throughout the galaxies via endless exploration, you shall live forever in your words.

Check out some of Bradbury’s poems at Brain Pickings, including this tidbit from “That Is Our Eden’s Spring, Once Promised”:

What I to apeman
And what then he to me?
I an apeman one day soon will seem to be
To those who, after us, look back from Mars
And they, in turn, mere beasts will seem
To those who reach the stars;
So apemen all, in cave, in frail tract-house,
On Moon, Red Planet, or some other place;
Yet similar dream, same heart, same soul,
Same blood, same face,
Rare beastmen all who move to save and place their pyres
From cavern mouth to world to interstellar fires.

A is for Astronaut. H is for Hero.

R.I.P. Sally Ride

The video above is very special to me. It represents the earliest memory I have of being interested in science. In the mid-80’s my life revolved around a precious few cultural institutions: Transformers, He-Man, Knight Rider, CHiPs and of course … Sesame Street.

I was just a little too young to have seen Sally Ride’s appearance on Sesame Street when it first aired around 1984, but in reruns just a year or two later, I distinctly remember her light blue flight suit, that big square name tag, the bright patches that adorned her chest like medals from adventures that I could scarcely imagine. Her green-screen rocket launch suspended a full 100% of my disbelief. I also remember that her looks reminded me of my mom, who is a computer scientist. This is coming from a guy who can barely remember what he had for breakfast, so let the significance of a 27 year-old memory be noted.

Like Sally Ride and my mother, there were countless females trudging unheralded through swamps of sexism, explicit and otherwise, to achieve their scientific and professional goals. I was completely oblivious to this at my young age, of course. But I knew what space was, I knew what astronauts were, I knew how awesome space shuttles were, and I understood that Sally Ride was the first woman to ride one. I just didn’t understand exactly what that meant. And despite all of that, I became a biologist, not an astronaut.

I’m certain that most children didn’t understand the magnitude of a Sally Ride. To us, being the first woman to do something just meant that only boys had done it before. Thus, to me, as a young boy, Sally Ride didn’t represent a pioneering feminist, a trailblazer of labor equality or any such polysyllabic sociopolitical archetype. She was all of those things, though.

For us, Sally Ride was our first astronaut-teacher. She was perhaps the first scientist that many of us saw. She smiled at us, and told us that happy people were doing very smart things. She told us that doing smart things could make us happy. Many years later, I saw her speak of the continuing challenges faced by girls in science. For a second time in my life, she inspired me, only this time it was to show the world how accessible and amazing science is, male or female, future scientist or future citizen.

It’s impossible to know what my trajectory in life would have been without that Sesame Street episode. Would I have ended up where I am today had I chose to ride my bike that day and missed it? Would I be a banker, or a chef? Nope, I think I’d have ended up right here. It is precisely because of people like Sally Ride, and her lifetime commitment to teaching and empowering anyone to study science, that the discovery bug is so easy to catch today, and so rewarding to those who do. 

We have much work to do to continue her legacy of equality and education, but the largest leaps have already been taken. When Sally Ride rode into space as our first female astronaut, she carried us all forward with her. So thank you, Sally Ride. We will continue to teach, discover and smile in your honor.

For more, check out Sally Ride Science, and support it and other inspirational programs in your community.

Ray Bradbury reading his poem “If Only We Had Taller Been”

In November 1971, we were locked in yet another space race, albeit a quieter one. Americans had already begun to grow bored with the Apollo program, as the final two missions were to be launched in 1972, those primarily being very expensive geology expeditions.

Then Mariner 9 was launched. We were in a race with the USSR to put a spacecraft in orbit around another planet. In November of 1971, we did it. I’m not sure that Americans were by any means excited about it, but they should have been. Just as we must stay excited about our progress yet to come.

Ray Bradbury joined Arthur C. Clarke, Carl Sagan and others at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Labs in Pasadena to commemorate the mission’s success. Here he reads his poem “If Only We Had Taller Been”, an ode to exploration, and a fitting tribute to his legacy as a writer and dreamer. In full above (with a captivated Sagan included) and excerpted below:

O, Thomas, will a Race one day stand really tall

Across the Void, across the Universe and all?

And, measure out with rocket fire,

At last put Adam’s finger forth

As on the Sistine Ceiling,

And God’s great hand come down the other way

To measure Man and find him Good,

And Gift him with Forever’s Day?

I work for that.

Short man. Large dream. I send my rockets forth

between my ears,

Hoping an inch of Will is worth a pound of years.

Aching to hear a voice cry back along the universal Mall:

We’ve reached Alpha Centauri!

We’re tall, O God, we’re tall!

(via Boing Boing)

Source: Boing Boing

Ray Bradbury: 1920-2012

Some great words from the iconic author, on how literature is a necessary escape for the human mind, to keep us from coming apart:

Literature is the Safety Valve of Civilization (via Open Culture):

“No matter what your profession in this world, you’re grabbing onto a piece of reality and interpreting it, and helping yourself and others to make do.”

“We are the tension collecting animals of the world … every other animal acts in the instant to destroy, or run from destruction … we build walls, we build cities, and so inside these cities, inside these walls we need artists.”

On harnessing what’s already inside you to feed your creativity, instead of forcing it:

“You didn’t even know the story was in you, but you go with it.”

More: Ray Bradbury’s timeless advice to writers in 2001 (via Brain Pickings)

Ray Bradbury’s 1951 short story “The Rocket Man”, which will make you yearn to explore space even 61 years later.

Source: openculture.com