Biography of Carl Sagan, Astronomer of the People

Astronomer and author Carl Sagan (November 9, 1934 — December 20, 1996) burst into public consciousness as the star and producer of the TV series Cosmos. He was a prolific researcher in astronomy  as well as a science popularizer who sought to educate the public about the universe and the value of the scientific method.   Early Years Born in Brooklyn, New York, Sagan grew up with a strong interest in the planets, stars, and science fiction. His father, Samuel Sagan, immigrated from what is now Ukraine and worked as a garment worker. His mother, Rachel Molly Gruber, encouraged his great interest in science. Sagan often cited his parents influence on his career, saying that his father influenced his imagination and his mother urged him to go to the library to find books about stars. Professional Life After graduating from high school in 1951, the young Sagan headed the University of Chicago for a degree in physics. At the University of Chicago, he took part in chemistry research about the building blocks of life. He went on to earn a Ph.D. in astronomy and astrophysics in 1960. Sagan left Illinois and began working at University of California - Berkeley, where he worked with a team to  build an instrument for a NASA mission to Mars called Mariner 2. In the 1960s, Sagan moved to Harvard University, where he worked at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. There, he focused his research more closely on planetary science, with a particular interest in Venus and Jupiter. Sagan later moved again to Cornell University, where he served as director of the Laboratory for Planetary Studies. Sagans work with NASA continued. He was a principal advisor for the Viking missions and worked on the landing site selection. He also was instrumental in a project to put messages from humanity aboard the Pioneer and Voyager probes to the outer solar system. In 1976, he became  the David Duncan Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences, a chair he held until his death. Research Interests and Activism Throughout his career, Carl Sagan remained deeply interested in the possibility of life on other worlds.  Throughout his work with NASA and the U.S. space program, he tirelessly promoted the ideas behind the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, colloquially known as SETI. Sagan worked on  several collaborative experiments, which ultimately demonstrated that, when exposed to ultraviolet light, mixtures of amino acids and nucleic acids could be produced in  conditions much like those of early Earth. Carl Sagan conducted early research on climate change. One of his studies showed that the high temperatures on the surface of Venus could be attributed to a runaway greenhouse effect. Throughout his career, Sagan continued his scientific research, ultimately publishing more than 600 papers. Throughout his work, he advocated for scientific skepticism and healthy reasoning, promoting skepticism as an alternative to belief systems of politics and religion. Sagan was also  an anti-war activist. He  studied the potential impact of nuclear war and advocated for nuclear disarmament. Science as a Way of Thinking As an avid skeptic and agnostic, Sagan promoted the scientific method as a tool for better understanding the world. In his book  Demon-Haunted World, he laid out strategies for critical thinking, deconstructing arguments, and testing claims. Sagan published a number of other science books aimed at a lay audience, including The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence, and Brocas Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science.  Ã‚  Ã‚   In 1980, Carl Sagans:  Cosmos: A Personal Voyage premiered on television.  The premiere turned Sagan into a well-known science popularizer. The show was aimed at a general audience, with each  episode  focusing on a different aspect of scientific discovery or exploration.  Cosmos  received two Emmy Awards.   Later Years and Legacy In the 1990s, Carl Sagan was diagnosed with a blood condition called myelodysplasia. He received three bone marrow transplants and ongoing treatment, continuing to work on his research and writing even as the condition worsened. At age 62, Sagan died of pneumonia associated with his condition. Sagan left a long-lasting legacy in the fields of astronomy and science education. Several awards for science communication are named after Carl Sagan, included two given by the Planetary Society. The Mars Pathfinder location on Mars is named the Carl Sagan Memorial Station.   Carl Sagan Fast Facts Full Name: Carl Edward SaganKnown For: Astronomer, author, and science popularizer  Born: November 9, 1934 in Brooklyn, New York, USADied: December 20, 1996 in Seattle, Washington, USAEducation: University of Chicago (B.A., B.S., M.S., Ph.D.)Selected Works:  Cosmos: A Personal Journey,  Demon-Haunted World,  The Dragons of Eden,  Brocas BrainKey Accomplishments:  NASA Medal of Honor (1977), Emmy Award for Outstanding Personal Achievement (1981), authored 600 scientific papers and dozens of popular science articles and books.Spouse Name:  Lynn Margulis (1957-1965), Linda Salzman (1968-1981),  Ann Druyan (1981-1996)Childrens Names: Jeremy, Dorion, Nick, Alexandra, Samuel  Famous Quote: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Sources and Further Reading Kragh, Helge. â€Å"Carl Sagan.† Encyclopà ¦dia Britannica, Encyclopà ¦dia Britannica, Inc., 27 Oct. 2017, www.britannica.com/biography/Carl-Sagan.  Head, Tom. Conversations with Carl Sagan (Literary Conversations), University Press of MIssissippi, 2006.  Terzian, Yervant, and Elizabeth Bilson. Carl Sagans Universe. Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Summary Of Siddhartha And Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll...

12AP English Summer Logs Siddhartha and Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Siddhartha Pages 1-13 Govinda is stated to be the most loving of Siddhartha, however, in almost all of the books I ve read, the one closest to the main protagonist ends up being his biggest enemy, or rather, opposing them, leading me to believe this friendship between Govinda and Siddhartha won t last very long. On page 5-6, Siddhartha feels the seeds of discontent due to those around him not being able to fill his vessel full of knowledge, possibly foreshadowing an eventual knowledge-hungry state of being. After further reading, I have concluded that Siddhartha isn t power hungry- and won t be- due to the questions he asks being more for his understanding of the world rather than just to have the knowledge. I feel as though the specific Om verse Siddhartha chose on page 9 has great meaning towards his overall goal. As states on page 6-7, Siddhartha wishes to know how to obtain Atman, or total inner peace, which he even goes on to say One must find the source within one s own self, one must possess it. Everything else was seeking- a detour,error, which could hint that Siddhartha feels the practice of reciting the Om -or that line specifically- is a detour from finding his inner peace. Siddhartha s determination to become a Samana mirrors greatly the way I stand up (yes even to my parents) for what I believe I want to do with my life and the choices I make. A worthy

This side of paradise Essay Example For Students

This side of paradise Essay Many critics have complained, with justice, that a great flaw in This Side of Paradise (aside from its loose, rambling structure) is the fact that the author seems uncertain as to his own attitude. He mocks the romantic delusions or emotional melodrama of his little rich boy, Amory Blaine, while too often he shares, or seems to share, in the delusions themselves. There is, in short, a kind of smart pseudo-sophistication imbedded within the narrative itself-a series of clever comments inserted for the sake of the cleverness rather than for any aesthetic purpose. And one result of this aesthetic self-indulgence is that the reader may find it difficult to take either Amory or his adventures with any degree of seriousness at all. Indeed, one feels as though the author himself were doing what Amory does during the course of the narrative: he merely holds the posture of writing about what actually is a very slight matter. The need for some sort of imposing or melodramatic gesture is, of course, one of the chief qualities of Amory Blaine as an adolescent. That neither Amory nor his creator-F. Scott Fitzgerald-ever grew out of this need, is a fact that readers of Fitzgeralds works have recognized as central to the direction of his life and career. For Amory, at any rate, and for his mother Beatrice Blaine as well, the posture of reality all too often replaces reality itself, while gesture stands as a substitute for emotional commitment. A woman of inherited wealth, Beatrice Blaine is a lovely, charming, superficial, childlike woman who maintains the posture of romance, a mere surface superimposed upon an essentially frigid or infantile refusal to commit herself to anything at all. She is, of course, the prototype for what has come to be known as the Fitzgerald Woman an enchanting but essentially parasitic femme fatale whom Fitzgerald the author used so often for his books, and whom (in the person of Zelda) Fitzgerald the man finally married. Beatrices attitude toward the Church, for example, is typical of her attitude toward all emotional commitments. She had once been a Catholic, we are told, but discovering that the Priests were infinitely more attentive when she was in the process of either losing or regaining faith in the Mother Church, she maintained an enchantingly wavering attitude. . . . Next to doctors, priests were her favorite sport. The effect, of course, is that of a woman for whom all action is a matter of calculated performance. Her very marriage to the weak and ineffectual (though rather literary and romantic) Stephen Blaine, Amorys father, was a similar sport: having married the all but invisible Mr. Blaine, Beatrice is subsequently rather astonished at actually becoming pregnant, and makes of Amory himself a perpetual toy of whatever fashionable manner she currently approves. That Amory, indeed, falls into a posture of play-acting whenever he is with Beatrice, is itself an indication of her charm and her lack of substance. The first chapter of This Side of Paradise is a very important one because it includes many themes which Fitzgerald repeats and amplifies throughout the rest of the novel. Amory, for example, from the very beginning of the book-especially during his early adolescence in Minneapolis and his four years at St. Regis Academy in Connecticut-is precocious, romantic, and literally stuffed with gestures that come both from his own rather exotic reading, and from the rootless globe-trotting of his mother. The very title of the chapter (Amory, Son of Beatrice) is both a parody of Epic genealogy, and clear indication that Amory is a mommas boy in a very profound sense of the term. Amory himself, with his long-lashed and unusual green eyes, with his calculated charm, and his immense, though vague conviction of his own superiority, from the very beginning relates to all aspects of reality through a veil of deliberate posturing. Anything too real, indeed, alarms rather than interests him: while playing a romantic scene with Myra St. Clair, for example, he is enchanted with the young girl until he actually kisses her. And then occurs an abrupt change from romantic mood (their lips brushed like wild flowers in the wind, writes Fitzgerald) to one of actual repugnance: Amory, having touched the actual flesh of the girl, feels merely a sudden revulsion . . . disgust, loathing of the entire incident.It is not the actual kiss which Amory desires (just as, later in his life, it is not sex itself which he wants), but rather it is the idea of being able to kiss the girl that intrigues him. He is, in short, perpetually fascinated with some imagined and usually baroque shado w of Grand Romance. And this Romance-whether of love, or success, or social justice, or art or intellectual pursuits, or religion simply collapses at any touch of sordid reality. Support The Death Penalty EssayThe philosophers, on the other hand, are those who pursue their own course independently of the rewards and the demands of Society itself. And it is significant to note that Amory remarks that there is, in his own personality, much of both the slicker and the philosopher.Amory Blaine, indeed, who even as a youth wondered how people could fail to notice that he was a boy marked for glory, was too much of a slicker to commit himself to his intellectual pursuits and aesthetic sensitivities; and too much of a philosopher to become a wholly successful slicker. And this tension, so basic to F. Scott Fitzgeralds own life, is the central tension of Amory Blaine. Even at Princeton, Amorys schizophrenic ambitions tend to dilute and weaken whatever intellectual power he possesses. He loves and is awed by all things Princetonian-especially the traditions, the self-assurance, the air of good breeding that seem as much a part of campus environment as are the lecture halls and athletic fields. But the Princeton atmosphere rests on a foundation of intense social competition; Amory, indeed, discovers all too rapidly a pecking-order of prestige and power. It is, Fitzgerald tells us, a breathless social system, that worship, seldom named, never really admitted, of the bogey Big Man.'Amory, of course, is fascinated with all the jockeying for position. In a world composed of the ins and the outs, he determines to achieve status at all costs, and to this end will use every talent at his disposal-whether it be a talent for correct dress, a talent for football, or a talent for writing. Each of these things, in short-the important along with the trivial-beco mes little more than a method of achieving success. For Amory Blaine, however, success is defined simply by the standards of the most powerful of those already established; lacking the kind of identity and will which enable young men like Burne Holiday to set the pattern for others, or to ignore all patterns in pursuit of goals shaped by personal rather than social goals, Amory simply drifts into success and, with an equal lack of conviction, drifts into failure as well. Even his relationships with women are defined by characteristic posturing. Isabelle Borge, for example, with whom he carries on a largely verbal affair and to whom he sends long and rapturous letters, is simply an image or dream-audience reflecting Amorys own narcissistic performances; their love is absurd because it is not real and cannot become real on the terms which Amory himself sets for it. The power of sex, indeed, offends him while it attracts; obsessed with guilt produced by his own emotions, Amory must either turn the emotions into Romantic Love derived from adolescent vapourings, or worship their object (as he worships Clara Page) until reality in some way becomes purer than its own existence. It is Clara Page, who-refusing to be turned into an object by Amorys emotional unreality-defines what is, perhaps, his essential weakness, and the weakness of the Fitzgerald Hero as a type. You lack judgment, says Clara, the judgment to decide at once when you know your imagination will play you false, given half a chance. For Clara perceives that Amory Blaine does not simply oppose reality with his own Idealism, but rather confuses one with the other, so that reality is virtually reshaped according to a dream-image that will be spoiled by any sort of real consummation. The result, inevitably, is a continual disaffection with reality, together with an equally persistent dissatisfaction with the Ideal. Unwilling or unable to sacrifice real success by committing himself fully to an ideal, and unwilling to sacrifice his Ideals or Dream-roles by committing himself totally to the real world, Amory fluctuates between both, and finally can identify neither. And so he is left without emotional or intellectual direction-until the war provides at least a temporary solution by eliminating the need for any commitment whatever. Bibliography:monarch notes cheet sheets, cd-rom

Magnesium Oxide Lab Report Essay Example

Magnesium Oxide Lab Report Paper The duration of this experiment it is a must to wear safety glasses and lab coat at all times during the lab, even when not working directly with the chemicals r apparatus. 2. Do not touch the apparatus, during the experiment it may still be which further can lead to burns. 3. Be careful around the Bunsen burner, even when switched off they may still be hot! 4. Do not inhale the magnesium ribbon. 5. Do not touch the magnesium ribbon. 6. Always wash your hands thoroughly before and after handling any chemicals. Procedure: 1 . Record the mass of a clean, dry crucible with its lid. Handle the crucible with tongs, not your fingers, to avoid moisture and oil from your fingers being transferred. ) 2. Use fine sand paper to scrape the oxide coating from the surface f a strip of magnesium ribbon approximately 2 CM length. Cut the ribbon into small pieces, place in the crucible, and weigh the crucible, its lid and contents. 3. Heat the crucible in a hot flame for 10 minutes, ensuring that th e magnesium is exposed to air but that no solid escapes. After this time the magnesium should have been converted too white powder. 4. On the electronic balance there maybe leftover substance or tiny materials accounting for total weight of the crucible with magnesium ribbon inside the crucible, with the lid on it Qualitative Observations: Magnesium Qualitative Observations (Not the actual photos of the experiment) Before Heating During Heating After Heating Color Metallic Orange Flame White Light **at different duration of the experiment** White Powder Appearance Shiny thin sheet of ribbon, with an dark grey line in the middle. The magnesium ribbon starts to transform from a shiny metallic color to a white color. Cracks are observed in the white magnesium powder. Data Processing Presentation: Processed Data table The mass of magnesium is deduced by subtracting the mass of the crucible and the lid from the mass of the crucible and the lid with magnesium in the crucible before the heating process. Average of mass of magnesium: Crucible + Lid + Magnesium) ? (Crucible + Lid) Average of mass of magnesium 0. 036Â ± 0. Egg The mass of oxygen is deduced by subtracting before heating total mass of the crucible and the lid with magnesium in the crucible from the after heating process total mass of the crucible and the lid magnesium in the crucible before the heating process. Average of mass of magnesium = 0. 02 grams Conclusion Evaluation: Conclusion: Evaluation: = 00000 x 100 Random error is an error in measurement caused by factors that vary from one measurement to another. When the crucible was weighed with the lid and with r without the substances, we should of kept the same person weigh to keep a constant circumstance and methods used during the experiment and the electronic balancer should be kept the same, to reduce any random error by changing the electronic balancer. We will write a custom essay sample on Magnesium Oxide Lab Report specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Magnesium Oxide Lab Report specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Magnesium Oxide Lab Report specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Repeat measurements during experiments, to reduce random error enough to get a normal distribution. Mean values will be close to the actual value, which helps reduce random error. Systematic error is where something has gone wrong with the measuring device or method. To reduce systematic error we should apply the correct methods and be thorough tit the procedure for the experiment, be aware requirements of the lab and take precaution during the lab with methods applied during the experiment. To determine systematic error it most obvious in a graph within outlier in the graph. Outlier represents the systematic error. In this case if I were to determine a systematic error during the lab I would consider making a graph which would represent the data collected during the experiment. I should keep these systematic and random errors in my mind when conducting my next experiment to stop these errors to occur again in the experiment.