Carl Sagan - The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God

* The Lorentz transformations specify how time slows down and length contracts in any frame of reference depending on its relative speed. Einsteins theory of special relativity derived the Lorentz transformation by assuming a constant speed of light for all observers.

* There is something anthropocentric without a doubt in talking about liquid water, but lets grant them that. Its curious in these arguments to find organisms who are made largely of liquid water saying that liquid water is central to the universe. But put that aside.

*In July 2006, NASA announced that the Cassini space probe in the Saturn system observed evidence for numerous great lakes of liquid hydrocarbons on Titan.

* In 2006 the Planetary Society and Harvard University inaugurated the SETI Optical Telescope, the first-ever optical observatory dedicated to the search for intelligent extraterrestrial signals. For the history of the Planetary Society and SETI, see www.planetary.org, and for the thrill of actually participating in the search, go to www.setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/.

* In 1998 two international teams of astronomers independently reported unexpected evidence that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. These findings suggest that the universe is not oscillating but will continue to expand forever.

* Earth-based telescopes provided the answer in 1998. See previous note.

*By 2006 the world nuclear arsenals had been reduced to about twenty thousand weaponsstill roughly ten times what would be necessary to destory our our global civilization. The principal reductions since 1985 were due to the 1993 Start II Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union.

*In 1988 the Vatican allowed samples of the original shroud material to be dated by the radiocarbon method. Three laboratories (in Arizona, Oxford, and Zurich) independently determined that the fabric dates from the period A.D . 1260 to 1390.

THE VARIETIES OF
SCIENTIFIC EXPERIENCE

Carl Sagan (November 9, 1934December 20, 1996) was professor of astronomy and space sciences and director of the Laboratory for Planetary Studies at Cornell University. He played a leading role in the Mariner , Viking , and Voyager spacecraft expeditions to the planets, for which he twice received the NASA Medals for Exceptional Scientific Achievement. Dr. Sagan received the Pulitzer Prize and the highest awards of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Science Foundation and many other awards for his contributions to science, literature, education, and the preservation of the environment. His book Cosmos (accompanying his Emmy and Peabody Awardwinning television series of the same name) was the bestselling science book ever published in the English language, and his bestselling novel Contact was turned into a major motion picture.

Dr. Sagan was among the first to alert the public to the danger of global warming and the potential climatic consequences of nuclear war. In the 1980s he initiated the campaign to forge an alliance between religion and science to protect the environment.