Cosmos

Author: Carl Sagan

Prologue:
 Cosmos traces the origins of knowledge and the scientific
method, mixing science and philosophy, and speculates to the
future of science. The book covers a broad range of topics,
comprising Sagan's reflections on anthropological, cosmological,
biological, historical, and astronomical matters.

About The Author:

Called "America's most effective salesman of science" by Time
magazine, Astronomer Carl Sagan graduated from the University
of Chicago, where he studied planets and explored theories of
extraterrestrial intelligence.
Carl Sagan was one of the most well-known scientists of the 1970s
and 1980s. He studied extraterrestrial intelligence, advocated for
nuclear disarmament and co-wrote and hosted 'Cosmos: A Personal
Voyage.'
Over the course of Sagan’s career, he was honored several
times, notably receiving NASA’s Distinguished Public Service
Medal (1977, 1981) and the National Academy of Sciences’
Public Welfare Medal (1994), among dozens of others.

About The Book:

Cosmos is a book about the Universe. It aims to help us
understand the vast and complex world we live in. In this book,
Sagan tells us about the way the Universe appeared and evolved,
how the human species evolved and what we may achieve in the
future.
From the beginning Carl really puts things in perspective. He
starts by pointing out how small we are in the grand scheme of
the Cosmos. Our civilization has thrived only for a couple
thousand years. That may seem like a long time for most of us but
the universe has existed for 13.8 billion years. Nonetheless, we
are clever creatures, and we have learned a great deal about the
Cosmos despite the astronomical distances.
However, there are still many mysteries that we haven't solved,
for example, we suspect there are other forms of matter and
energy out there that we still can't even comprehend and we
resort to call them “dark”. Furthermore, we are not sure why we
haven't found other forms of life, statistically the Universe should
be brimming with life! So where is everybody? We don't know, as
Carl said, “we are standing at the shores of the cosmic
ocean” and we have barely dipped our ankles.

All probes sent into space, have brought back so much

information and knowledge from our solar system, that has forced
our minds and hearts to open to the cosmos. In a way, these
manmade probes are the explorers of our era.

 Then Carl Sagan talks about light. It travels at 1 billion km/h or

600 million mph never any faster or any slower. However, this
fixed speed in vacuum has its practicalities. In fact, it is thanks to
that limit that we can calculate how far other stars and galaxies
are. Moreover, we can calculate if those objects are moving
towards us or away from us. This is done by identifying one of two
phenomena, ‘blueshift’ or ‘redshift’. Blue shifting objects are
moving towards us and red shifting objects are moving away from
us. We have discovered that most of the objects at the limits of
the observable universe are red shifting, that is moving away from
us and not at a constant speed, but at an accelerating rate. This
means the universe is expanding faster and faster as time goes
by.
Another curious thing about light in space, is that by the time it
reaches us from a faraway object, the light that we detect here on
Earth has been traveling for a long time. Meaning that if we
observe a supernova explosion, it probably happened several
years ago but its light is just reaching us.
Looking at the stars we have also understood their life cycles.
Inside a star, gravity exerts such a high pressure that atoms are
squeezed together (so close) that they have no choice but
to fuse together and form a bigger atom. This process is called
nuclear fusion, and it releases a tremendous amount of energy in
the form of light and heat. Stars are fusion machines, and since
their light is what sustains life, they are potential life breeding
machines.
Some larger stars can do this fusion “step-up” more than once as
they die, but the Sun doesn't have enough mass and it will only
step up once to helium. The helium fusion on the dying Sun may
last for a few millennia, but this whole time the Sun will have a
strong temperature gradient between the hot helium fusion in the
core, and the slightly cooler red surface. This gradient will cause it
to expand, most likely reaching the orbits of Mercury, Venus, and
perhaps the Earth. At this point stars are called ‘red giants’ and
they are very unstable.
Carl did not explicitly say what happens later but I assume they
explode, completely annihilate and nothing is left behind. Single
stars that are much bigger than the Sun have a different death as
well. When their fusion stops (often silicon fusion, which is the
third ‘step-up’), these massive stars contract until there is barely
any space between the atomic nuclei. And they explode vividly in
one of the most magnificent events in the universe, known as
a supernova. A supernova is also a fusion reaction, but it happens
in a matter of seconds. It releases a bunch of heavy elements into
space, and for a few moments, this single star becomes brighter
than the entire galaxy where it sits.
Finally, stars more massive than those who explode in a
supernova, have an even more astonishing and mysterious
destiny. Instead of leaving a neutron star behind, they leave a
black hole behind. Objects so dense that their gravity doesn't
even let light out.
This book closes with another awakening perspective, it focuses
on us. The human species has been running around the Earth for
about 200,000 years but will we be able to survive. Carl’s concern
in the end is whether we will be able to prevent our own
destruction. I assume he included this because the book was
written in the middle of the Cold War, and an imminent nuclear
disaster was in everyone’s mind.

My Opinion:
Well, I think that Carl Sagan did a brilliant job! This book tells us a
few things about all major things that exist in our world: from
atoms to galaxies and everything in between.
I was amazed by how well Sagan managed to draw on many
fields to write a book that makes sense. He talks about topics
from astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, history,
religion, politics and economy. And even though he references so
many fields of knowledge, he manages to write a book that can
be understood by anyone.
Reading this book left me speechless a few times. It made me
marvel at how our Universe works and it reminded me that real
life can be stranger than fiction. For example, did you know
that: Gravity can affect even light? Or that gravity affects time? 
 I realized that Carl Sagan was a deep thinker, the type that
seems to be in a league of his own. He had the mind of a true
scientist who was in search of the truth. He did not want to let
society cloud his judgement and he knew that sometimes the truth
does not correspond with our beliefs or expectations.
Nonetheless I think some of his concerns are relevant even today
given our inability to address global warming or eliminate
terrorism. Unfortunately, at the moment humans seem to be more
fond of barriers, and we like to separate ourselves by nationality,
ethnicity and social status.