Showing posts with label Carl Sagan. Show all posts

Remembering Carl Sagan

12/20/2009 • by Thilina Heenatigala • In anniversary, Carl Sagan • 1 comment

Today we mark the thirteenth year death anniversary of a great personality, an astronomer, author and a science popularizer – Carl Sagan (November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996).

The COSMOS series still manage to make me inspire in lot of ways and I consider it as the best series ever made.

10 Years After: Carl Sagan And Ann Druyan Reflect - Best Of Carl Sagan's Cosmos

I came across this interesting song "A Glorious Dawn" made from the series "Cosmos," which also includes Stephen Hawking "singing."

His teaching, his legacy will continue to inspire many science educators in generations to come.

"We are a way for the cosmos to know itself. " - Carl Sagan

Links to other posts I made over the years.
Star stuff contemplating star stuff : Remembering Carl Sagan

The Star Stuff Guy- Carl Sagan

Other links:
Carl Sagan Portal

Celebrating Sagan

The Discovery Enterprise: The Best of Cosmos - Remembering Carl Sagan

The Discovery Enterprise: One of Carl Sagan's Most Pertinent Messages for Humanity

“star stuff contemplating star stuff” : Remembering Carl Sagan

12/21/2007 • by Thilina Heenatigala • In anniversary, Carl Sagan • No comments

“Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people,” Carl Edward Sagan once said.

Even though I have been involved in astronomy for a while, but not until few years ago I discovered the “true Sagan”. Then thanks to Prof. Kavan Ratnatunga, last year I got an opportunity to watch all the episodes of COSMOS. Aired in more than 60 countries and viewed by 600 million people worldwide, this amazing series still is very effective though it was made in 80s.

What most inspired me about him was his ability to put something complicated in a very simplest form, so that anyone without a scientific background could understand it.

COSMOS and Sri Lanka

After seeing the series, Prof. Kavan and I decided to screen it at a local university for the undergraduate students. Each episode was followed by a discussion related to the theme.

Unfortunately the name Carl Sagan is not popular in Sri Lanka. Only handful of people is aware of this great mind. Since we, at Sri Lanka Astronomical Association planning programs for the International Year of Astronomy 2009 , under IYA2009 one of our goals would be to air COSMOS in our national channel with Sinhalese subtitles.

I hope during next year we’ll be able to get the necessary steps towards airing of COSMOS in Sri Lanka.

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Check Joel’s Carl Sagan Memorial Blog-a-Thon, Celebrating Sagan blog and website.

"The significance of a finding that there are other beings who share this universe with us would be absolutely phenomenal, it would be an epochal event in human history."

The Star Stuff Guy- Carl Sagan

12/10/2007 • by Thilina Heenatigala • In anniversary, Carl Sagan • No comments

Although I have been involved in astronomy for couple of years, I wasn’t aware of this brilliant personality, Dr. Carl Sagan until recently (I should add here that there are unfortunately only handful of people who knows about Carl Sagan in Sri Lanka). Then thanks to Prof. Kavan Ratnatunga, I managed to watch the whole thirteen episodes of COSMOS which I find amazing. Because of it’s usefulness after so many years. What attracted me most is the way he puts all these complicated science stuff in a simplest form where general public and anyone without any scientific background could easily grasp.

The first step was to screen the COSMOS series in one our local universities- University of Colombo- as a project organized by Sri Lanka Astronomical Association. It was screened last year for the tenth anniversary of Carl Sagan’s passing.

This year we are just about to celebrate the eleventh anniversary of Carl Sagan’s passing. Recently I came across Joel’s Carl Sagan Memorial Blog-a-Thon -which originally gave me the inspiration to do the Sir Arthur Clarke’s 90^th birthday wish blog.- Joel’s continuing the Carl Sagan Memorial Blog-a-thon for the second consecutive time.

I’ll be contributing this year with an article about Carl Sagan for the local newspaper. December 20^th is the big date.