Cosmos: The Story of Cosmic Evolution, Science and Civilisation - Softcover

Sagan, Carl

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0349107033 ISBN 13: 9780349107035

Publisher: Abacus, 1983

Synopsis

This work is the story of 15 billion years of cosmic evolution, transforming matter and life into consciousness, how science and civilization grew up together and the forces and individuals who helped shape modern science. The book aims to make scientific ideas accesssible and exciting. It is based on the television series of the same name. Subjects covered include the ancient library of Alexandria, the death of the sun, the evolution of galaxies, space missions and hieroglyphics.

About this title

Review

Cosmos was the first science TV blockbuster, and Carl Sagan was its (human) star. By the time of Sagan's death in 1996, the series had been seen by half a billion people; Sagan was perhaps the best-known scientist on the planet. Explaining how the series came about, Sagan recalled:

I was positive from my own experience that an enormous global interest exists in the exploration of the planets and in many kindred scientific topics--the origin of life, the Earth, and the Cosmos, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, our connection with the universe. And I was certain that this interest could be excited through that most powerful communications medium, television.

Sagan's own interest and enthusiasm for the universe were so vivid and infectious, his screen presence so engaging, that viewers and readers couldn't help but be caught up in his vision. From stars in their "billions and billions" to the amino acids in the primordial ocean, Sagan communicated a feeling for science as a process of discovery. Inevitably, some of the science in Cosmos has been outdated in the years since 1980--but Sagan's sense of wonder is ageless. --Mary Ellen Curtin

From the Inside Flap

This visually stunning book with over 250 full-color illustrations, many of them never before published, is based on Carl Sagan?s thirteen-part television series. Told with Sagan?s remarkable ability to make scientific ideas both comprehensible and exciting, Cosmos is about science in its broadest human context, how science and civilization grew up together.

The book also explores spacecraft missions of discovery of the nearby planets, the research in the Library of ancient Alexandria, the human brain, Egyptian hieroglyphics, the origin of life, the death of the Sun, the evolution of galaxies and the origins of matter, suns and worlds.

Sagan retraces the fifteen billion years of cos-mic evolution that have transformed matter into life and consciousness, enabling the Cosmos to wonder about itself. He considers the latest findings on life elsewhere and how we might communicate with the beings of other worlds.

Cosmos is the story of our long journey of discovery and the forces and individuals who helped to shape modern science, including Democritus, Hypatia, Kepler, Newton, Huy-gens, Champollion, Lowell and Humason. Sagan looks at our planet from an extra-terrestrial vantage point and sees a blue jewel-like world, inhabited by a lifeform that is just beginning to discover its own unity and to ven-ture into the vast ocean of space.

Edition details

• Publisher: Abacus
• Publication date: 1983
• ISBN 10: 0349107033
• ISBN 13: 9780349107035
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 416