#druyan

[truechatinc]

Is There Intelligent Life Beyond Earth?

[truechatinc]

Should We Care About Science?

[acknowledgetheabsurd]

[itsokaytobesmart]

On Space, Love, and Carl Sagan's Cosmic Mix Tape

Penny Lane was fascinated by the journey of the Voyager probes, as they carried inside of them gold records full of binary-coded human culture to the farthest reaches of our solar system, and beyond. It occurred to her that those gold records represented a love story - not of mankind, but of Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, who met and fell in love while assembling these time capsules of our species.

Penny made this short film as a love note to her husband on their wedding day, using the journey of these spacecraft and the love story of Carl and Ann as a way to express her joy and wonder on that day:

"Thousands of millions of years from now, long after our Sun burns the Earth into nothing, the Voyagers will still be out there, rushing at incredible speeds, into an incredible unknown, seeking. The Voyagers were only built to last two years, but they surprised everyone.

They are fearless."

(via The Atlantic)

[obviouslybenhughes]

When my husband died, because he was so famous and known for not being a believer, many people would come up to me — it still sometimes happens — and ask me if Carl changed at the end & converted to a belief in an afterlife. They also frequently ask me if I think I will see him again. Carl faced his death with unflagging courage and never sought refuge in illusions. The tragedy was that we knew we would never see each other again. I don’t ever expect to be reunited with Carl. But, the great thing is that when we were together, for nearly twenty years, we lived with a vivid appreciation of how brief and precious life is. We never trivialized the meaning of death by pretending it was anything other than a final parting. Every single moment that we were alive and we were together was miraculous — not miraculous in the sense of inexplicable or supernatural. We knew we were beneficiaries of chance… That pure chance could be so generous and so kind… That we could find each other, as Carl wrote so beautifully in Cosmos, you know, in the vastness of space and the immensity of time… That we could be together for twenty years. That is something which sustains me and it’s much more meaningful… The way he treated me and the way I treated him, the way we took care of each other and our family, while he lived. That is so much more important than the idea I will see him someday. I don’t think I’ll ever see Carl again. But I saw him. We saw each other. We found each other in the cosmos, and that was wonderful.

Ann Druyan, talking about her husband, Carl Sagan Happy birthday, Mr. Sagan.

[purplecalla]

Forever this

[purplecalla]

[joycesu]

Felt a bit inspired today by Barrett to go through archives of Sagan lectures and interviews. This, of course inevitably led me to my absolute favorite love story of all time, that of Ann Druyan, Carl Sagan, and the Ultimate Mix Tape of the Human Experience.