Cosmos - Carl Sagan [3]
My feelings were shared by B. Gentry Lee, the Viking Data Analysis and Mission Planning Director. We decided, gamely, to do something about the problem ourselves. Lee proposed that we form a production company devoted to the communication of science in an engaging and accessible way. In the following months we were approached on a number of projects. But by far the most interesting was an inquiry tendered by KCET, the Public Broadcasting Service’s outlet in Los Angeles. Eventually, we jointly agreed to produce a thirteen-part television series oriented toward astronomy but with a very broad human perspective. It was to be aimed at popular audiences, to be visually and musically stunning, and to engage the heart as well as the mind. We talked with underwriters, hired an executive producer, and found ourselves embarked on a three-year project called Cosmos. At this writing it has an estimated worldwide viewing audience of over 200 million people, or almost 5 percent of the human population of the planet Earth. It is dedicated to the proposition that the public is far more intelligent than it has generally been given credit for; that the deepest scientific questions on the nature and origin of the world excite the interests and passions of enormous numbers of people. The present epoch is a major crossroads for our civilization and perhaps for our species. Whatever road we take, our fate is indissolubly bound up with science. It is essential as a matter of simple survival for us to understand science. In addition, science is a delight; evolution has arranged that we take pleasure in understanding—those who understand are more likely to survive. The Cosmos television series and this book represent a hopeful experiment in communicating some of the ideas, methods and joys of science.
The book and the television series evolved together. In some sense each is based on the other. Many illustrations in this book are based on the striking visuals prepared for the television series. But books and television series have somewhat different audiences and admit differing approaches. One of the great virtues of a book is that it is possible for the reader to return repeatedly to obscure or difficult passages; this is only beginning to become possible, with the development of videotape and video-disc technology, for television. There is much more freedom for the author in choosing the range and depth of topics for a chapter in a book than for the procrustean fifty-eight minutes, thirty seconds of a noncommercial television program. This book goes more deeply into many topics than does the television series. There are topics discussed in the book which are not treated in the television series and vice versa. For example, explicit representations of the Cosmic Calendar, featured in the television series, do not appear here—in part because the Cosmic Calendar is discussed in my book The Dragons of Eden; likewise, I do not here discuss the life of Robert Goddard in much detail, because there is a chapter in Broca’s Brain devoted to him. But each episode of the television series follows fairly closely the corresponding chapter of this book; and I like to think that the pleasure of each will be enhanced by reference to the other. Only a few of the more than 250 full-color illustrations in the hardbound and trade paperback editions of Cosmos could be accommodated in this edition, but all illustrations necessary to understand the text are included.
For clarity, I have in a number of cases introduced an idea more than once—the first time lightly, and with deeper passes on subsequent appearances. This occurs, for example, in the introduction to cosmic objects in Chapter 1, which are examined in greater detail later on; or in the discussion of mutations, enzymes and nucleic acids in Chapter 2. In a few cases, concepts are presented out of historical order. For example, the ideas of the ancient Greek scientists are presented in Chapter 7, well after the discussion of Johannes Kepler in Chapter 3. But I believe an appreciation of the Greeks