COSMOS
The Book
Cosmos is magnificent, challenging. One of the books strengths is the way it traces todays knowledge and todays scientific method to their historical roots. It is enthusiasm, plus Dr. Sagans poetic insight and literary skill, that makes this an eminently readable book.
The Christian Science Monitor
Carl Sagan is one of the most brilliant scientists of our times. He has done an excellent writing job as he delves into the past, present, and future of science, dealing with the mindstaggering enormity of the cosmos in which we exist.
Associated Press
Pulitzer Prize winner Carl Sagan has gathered the whole glittering universe into one magnificent book. He blends science and philosophy in a text of such lyric energy. Sagan dazzles the mind with the miracle of our survival, framed by the stately galaxies of space.
Cosmopolitan
COSMOS
The Book
The past year saw that extraordinary television series, Cosmos, on the Public Broadcasting Service; these programs initiated tens of millions of viewers not only into the wonders of space but also into awareness of the deepest scientific questions concerning the nature and origin of the world, of life, of humankind. Carl Sagans book Cosmos is not the script of the television series but rather a full-fledged account, mostly in chronological order, of the great human efforts at scientific accomplishment. Cosmos gives the reader the opportunity to explore in depth. will make the writings of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells seem prosaic.
The Christian Century
In just a few years, Sagan has become Mr. Science, a widely respected popularizer able to link the stuff and history of life with the vastness of space and eternity. And he does it with a grace and lan that persuades you, for the moment at least, that nothing is more exciting or more important,
Chicago Tribune
Sagan is an astronomer with one eye on the stars, another on history, and a thirdhis mindson the human condition. We admire him greatly for his ambition and erudition, occasionally for the grace of his prose, and often for amazing us about our universe and ourselves.
Newsday
A fine work of popular science, with an unusual dose of imagination and vision.
The San Diego Union
Sagan knows precisely how to excite the imagination of the lay reader and hold his interest from first page to last. Here is this mind-stretching book to take us on the most fascinating of all voyages, knowledgeable, beautifully written, and strikingly illustrated. Every intelligent reader should read, mark, learn and inwardly digest Sagans cosmic story.
John Barkham Reviews
Magnificent Sagans inquiry into man within nature is free from superstition and pessimism. A grand vision.
The American Rationalist
COSMOS
The Television Series
The most widely watched series in the history of American public television, Cosmos, has now been viewed by over 200 million people in more than 60 countries.
Cosmos is perhaps the most original and unique contribution to television programming made during the past three years. superior at every level. It entertains, instructs, informs, excites and inspires. great attention to clarity and scholarship exceptional respect for the viewing public. Cosmos is a triumph for Dr. Sagan, for science television programming and for the American people.
Ohio State University
Annual Award for Television Excellence
By Carl Sagan
Published by The Random House Publishing Group:
BROCAS BRAIN
COSMOS
THE DRAGONS OF EDEN
MURMURS OF EARTH
SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS (with Ann Druyan)
PALE BLUE DOT
BILLIONS & BILLIONS
A Ballantine Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright 1980 by Carl Sagan Productions, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Since this page cannot legibly accommodate all acknowledgments, they appear on the .
Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
www.ballantinebooks.com
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 80-5286
eISBN: 978-0-307-80098-5
This edition published by arrangement with Random House, Inc.
v3.1_r1
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:
American Folklore Society: Excerpt from Chukchee Tales by Waldemar Borgoras from Journal of American Folklore, volume 41 (1928). Reprinted by permission of the American Folklore Society.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.: Quote by Isaac Newton (Optics), quote by Joseph Fourier (Analytic Theory of Heat), and A Question Put to Pythagoras by Anaximenes (c. 600 B.C .). Reprinted with permission from Great Books of the Western World. Copyright 1952 by Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Harvard University Press: Quote by Democritus of Abdera taken from Loeb Classical Library. Reprinted by permission of Harvard University Press.
Indiana University Press: Excerpts from Ovid, Metamorphoses, translated by Rolfe Humphries, copyright 1955 by Indiana University Press. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
Oxford University Press: Excerpt from Zurvan: A Zoroastrian Dilemma by R. C. Zaehner (Clarendon Press1955). Reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press.
Penguin Books, Ltd.: One line from Enuma Elish, Sumer, in Poems of Heaven and Hell from Ancient Mesopotamia, translated by N. K. Sandars (Penguin Classics, 1971). Copyright N. K. Sandars, 1971. Twelve lines from Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, translated by D. C. Lau (Penguin Classics, 1963). Copyright D. C. Lau, 1963. Reprinted by permission of Penguin Books, Ltd.
Pergamon Press, Ltd.: Excerpts from Giant Meteorites by E. L. Krinov are reprinted by permission of Pergamon Press, Ltd.
Simon & Schuster, Inc.: Quote from the Bhagavad Gita from Lawrence and Oppenheimer by Nuel Pharr Davis (1968, page 239), and excerpt from The Sand Reckoner by Archimedes taken from The World of Mathematics by James Newman (1956, volume 1, page 420). Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Simon & Schuster, Inc., and Bruno Cassirer, Ltd.: Quote from The Last Temptation of Christ by Nikos Kazantzakis. Reprinted by permission of the publisher in the United States, Simon & Schuster, Inc., and the publisher in England, Bruno Cassirer (Publishers), Ltd., Oxford. Copyright 1960 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.
The University of Oklahoma Press: Excerpt from Popol Vuh: The Sacred Book of the Ancient Quich Maya, by Adrian Recinos, 1950. Copyright 1950 by the University of Oklahoma Press. Reprinted by permission of the University of Oklahoma Press.
For Ann Druyan
In the vastness of space and the immensity of time,
it is my joy to share
a planet and an epoch with Annie.
CONTENTS