- Person
- Carl Sagan
- Lived
- 1934–1996
- Field
- Astronomy, planetary science
- From
- American
The story
Carl Sagan was a lifelong science-fiction fan. Reading science fiction and fantasy as a child helped draw him to astronomy, and as an adult he favoured stories that taught readers real science. He knew Isaac Asimov, spoke at the Nebula Awards in 1969 and briefly advised Stanley Kubrick on 2001: A Space Odyssey. Contact began in 1979 as a screenplay written with Ann Druyan. When the film stalled, Sagan turned it into a novel, and in 1981 Simon & Schuster paid him a $2 million advance, then reported to be the largest ever for a book not yet written.
Published in September 1985, Contact was Sagan's only novel. It follows Ellie Arroway, a radio astronomer who runs a search for extraterrestrial intelligence in New Mexico and detects a signal from the star Vega. The message contains plans for a machine, and the story follows the scientific, political and religious arguments that erupt around the world as nations decide whether to build it. Sagan named Ellie after Eleanor Roosevelt and Voltaire, whose family name was Arouet, and the character drew on the real SETI researcher Jill Tarter.
Sagan wanted the science to be as plausible as possible. He needed a way to send his heroine across interstellar space, so while developing the outline he asked his friend the physicist Kip Thorne for advice on wormholes, hypothetical tunnels through space and time. In the finished novel the machine carries Ellie and four colleagues through a network of wormholes to a station near the centre of the Milky Way. Sagan's question prompted Thorne to carry out original research on the physics of such shortcuts, including closed timelike curves.
The book was a major success. Its first printing was 265,000 copies, it ranked seventh on Publishers Weekly's bestseller list for 1985, and it sold 1.7 million copies in its first two years. In 1986 it won the Locus Award for Best First Novel.
Robert Zemeckis adapted it as the 1997 film Contact, starring Jodie Foster, with Sagan as a co-producer. Sagan died before it was completed, and the film ends with the dedication “For Carl.” Its blend of careful science, questions of faith and the hope of discovery has introduced new generations to the search for life in the universe.
Why it matters
Contact showed how fiction can carry real science to a mass audience, and Sagan's question to Kip Thorne even sparked new research on wormholes.
About Carl Sagan
Brooklyn-born astronomer who explained the Venus greenhouse, helped send humanity’s messages on Pioneer and Voyager, and taught Cosmos viewers worldwide to look at the universe with wonder and doubt.
More about Carl Sagan
- Carl Sagan co-founded the Planetary SocietyIn 1980 Carl Sagan co-founded the Planetary Society and became its first president, building a public movement to support the exploration of space.
- Carl Sagan explained why Venus is a furnaceIn the early 1960s Carl Sagan argued from radio data that Venus's surface was about 500 °C because of a greenhouse effect, a conclusion confirmed by Mariner 2 in 1962.
- Carl Sagan inspired a generation of science communicatorsCarl Sagan invited a 17-year-old Neil deGrasse Tyson to Cornell and taught Bill Nye astronomy, inspiring a generation of scientists and science popularisers.
- Carl Sagan showed Mars's changing colours were dustMany astronomers thought seasonal colour changes on Mars were spreading vegetation. Carl Sagan showed they were shifts in surface dust driven by windstorms.
- Carl Sagan asked Voyager to photograph the Pale Blue DotAt Carl Sagan's urging, Voyager 1 turned its camera homeward on February 14, 1990, and photographed Earth from about 6 billion kilometres away as a tiny pale blue dot.
- Carl Sagan designed humanity's first message to the starsGiven just three weeks by NASA, Carl Sagan and Frank Drake designed the Pioneer plaque, a message to any alien finders, now leaving the solar system aboard two spacecraft.
- Carl Sagan made the search for alien life respectableIn 1982 Carl Sagan published a petition in the journal Science supporting the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, signed by 70 scientists including seven Nobel laureates.
- Carl Sagan foresaw ocean worlds on Titan and EuropaCarl Sagan was among the first to suggest that Saturn's moon Titan might have surface liquids and that Jupiter's moon Europa might hide an ocean of water beneath its ice.
- Carl Sagan chaired the Voyager Golden Record committeeFor the Voyager probes launched in 1977, Carl Sagan chaired the committee that chose the Golden Record's contents, including greetings in 55 languages and 116 images of Earth.
- Carl Sagan warned Congress about climate change in 1985Drawing on his study of Venus, Carl Sagan testified to the US Congress in 1985 that the greenhouse effect would change Earth's climate.
- Carl Sagan's Cosmos reached 500 million peopleCosmos: A Personal Voyage, first broadcast in 1980, has been seen by at least 500 million people in 60 countries, and its companion book was the best-selling science book of its time.
- Carl Sagan won a Pulitzer Prize for The Dragons of EdenCarl Sagan's 1977 book The Dragons of Eden, on the evolution of human intelligence, won the 1978 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction and introduced his Cosmic Calendar.
- Carl Sagan gave the public a baloney detection kitIn The Demon-Haunted World (1995), Carl Sagan offered readers a toolkit for critical thinking and popularised the rule that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
- Carl Sagan warned the world about nuclear winterIn 1983 Carl Sagan co-authored the TTAPS study warning that a nuclear war could cool the planet, work honoured in 2022 with the Future of Life Award.
Sources
- Contact (novel) Wikipedia
- Carl Sagan Wikipedia
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.