Off topics... Carl Sagan Day

This November 7, 2009, the first annual Carl Sagan Day will be celebrated to honor the life and contributions of this great astronomer, author, and philosopher on the 75th anniversary of his birth.

Carl Edward Sagan (November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, astrochemist, author, and highly successful popularizer of astronomy, astrophysics and other natural sciences. He pioneered exobiology and promoted the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) .

He is world-famous for writing popular science books and for co-writing and presenting the award-winning 1980 television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage , which has been seen by more than 500 million people in over 60 countries.[2] A book to accompany the program was also published. He also wrote the novel Contact the basis for the 1997 film of the same name. During his lifetime, Sagan published more than 600 scientific papers and popular articles and was author, co-author, or editor of more than 20 books. In his works, he frequently advocated skeptical inquiry, secular humanism, and the scientific method.

See one of the more popular videos 'A pale blue dot' with Spanish subtitles for all spanish-speakers visiting this site!



Lastly, one of his quotes:

In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.