



The very first episode of Cosmos should have hooked anybody:
“We will encounter galaxies and suns and planets, life and consciousness coming into being, evolving and perishing. Worlds of ice and stars of diamond, atoms as massive as suns and universes smaller than atoms … The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. From it, we have learned most of what we know. Recently, we have waded a little out to sea, enough to dampen out toes or, at most, wet our ankles. The water seems inviting. The ocean calls. Some part of our being knows this is from where we came. We long to return.”
Here was a scientist who was also a poet – a slightly cheesy poet maybe, but definitely a great communicator of “awesome” ideas.
Cosmos was a TV series first transmitted in the UK at the start of the 1980s. Sagan’s definition was “The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be” so it had quite a wide remit. In the show, the American professor traversed the Cosmos in his “spaceship of the imagination”, a dandelion seed that he would blow on – the next moment he was inside, hair streaming in a non-existent breeze, hands waving over multi-coloured controls while he quoted from the Encyclopedia Gallactica. In this remarkable vessel Sagan traversed the universe, past and present. Readers of Johnny Mackintosh should recognize elements of this description and understand that Emperor Bram Khari bears a striking resemblance to the cosmologist from Cornell.
I always felt meeting Sagan was a highlight of my time at Cambridge University. He came to give a talk on the new theory of nuclear winter, the idea of which had come out of studying volcanoes on Mars. Afterwards I spoke to him and he signed by (battered) copy of Cosmos that I’d taken along.
When Brian Cox first started doing his Wonders of the Solar System TV programme I was determined not to like it because I thought nothing could compete with Cosmos, but I quickly changed my mind when I saw how superbly put together Wonders was – not another dumbed down trite computer-graphics-laden programme but something of real substance, and I could see Sagan’s influence shining through. I first met Cox at the Royal Society and we talked about our shared love of Cosmos. Later, in the second series of Wonders, I found it funny to see that the Manchester and CERN professor had carried his battered copy of Cosmos on location and referred to the photograph of the Anasazi rock painting, possibly depicting the supernova of 1054, that he’d first seen on this wonderful TV series from the 1980s.
Sagan didn’t only write and present nonfiction – though we should remember his fact was often far more extraordinary than most made-up traveller’s tales. If you ever saw the Jodie Foster movie
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On my way home from Vancouver I detoured to Brisbane for the launch of the MS Readathon in Queensland. I met a lovely bunch of kids, but more importantly, an inspiring bunch of kids - the top fund raisers for last year. Some had personal connections with Multiple Sclerosis; more had learned about it through their involvement with the Readathon. But they'd all fundraised and read with extraordinary dedication.
Congratulations to all of them - and good luck to everyone reading for the Readathon this year. Here's a link to the Community Service Announcement I recorded with Jodie Foster at Sea World the day of the Australian premier.
MS Readathon 2008 - Media - Advertisements
“Z-bot to Hana. This is a Gamepowa Video Alert. Transmitting.”
“Data located by secondary criteria directive from Ranko Yorozu, ninth grade student. Keywords ‘tough girls’ returned two versions of Nim’s Island movie trailers. Standing by with secondary transmission.”
“Yeah uhhh.. heh heh heh… I told Z-bot to find some games for tough girls.”
“Yeah Ranko used my communicator to talk to Z-bot and I said I like adventure movies too!”
“Looks like a cool movie. Let’s go with it.”
“Hana computers set to continuous-scan. Transmit when ready, Z-bot.”