It is something that cannot be measured.
These things I gained from him:
A sense of wonder at the cosmos. That goes without saying. No matter what he said or what special effects he employed, he communicated best through his own astonishment at our
mysterious and
surprising universe, and that sense of wonder was infectious. It made the rest of my family watch his programs, even when they disagreed with him.
Skepticism and conviction. Skepticism is a gift far greater than faith. Doubt is the ultimate result of deep conviction. This is the paradox of the inquiring mind. Faith is a set of beliefs that one holds against the onslaught of the new and of the unknown, but
skepticism allows one to question that siege mentality, and
conviction allows one to step into the unknown without preconceived ideas, trusting that you can handle whatever comes up. Carl taught me this, for he did it himself. He
was the person that he asked me to be.
Integrity and courage. Carl said what he meant and stood upon his word. Even people who vehemently disagreed with him remarked upon his honesty. He proposed some wacky ideas and didn’t care that other scientists looked askance at him. It did not surprise me that he met his end with valor. In his book
Cosmos Carl quoted an epitaph of two astronomers:
We have loved the stars too much to be afraid of the darkness. That was obviously true for him, and that says it all for me. We appear from, and vanish back into, the place where we are now. He is gone but he is here, for the cosmos is here, and the cosmos is our home, and even in death we will always be “starstuff.”
I never say, “Rest in peace,” for I had the sweetest high school chemistry teacher in the world (and a Christian) who drilled it into our heads that there was no plane of rest in the universe—everything was in motion, all the time. So I say instead,
Dance with nature in peace, Carl Sagan.
UPDATED: PZ says:
We need a thousand Sagans.
Carl Sagan Blog-a-Thon(Shimmies to Carl,
Bad Astronomy,
Pharyngula,
Nick Sagan, and
Cosmic Log)
