Cosmos: A Personal Voyage: Difference between revisions
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'''Cosmos: A Personal Voyage''' was the name of a thirteen part television series produced by [[Carl Sagan]] and [[Ann Druyan]] which was first broadcast in the [[Public Broadcasting Service]] in 1980 and featured a soundtrack by [[Vangelis]]. It won an Emmy and a Peabody award and has been since broadcast in 60 countries and seen by more than 500 million people, according to the NASA Office of Space Science. |
'''Cosmos: A Personal Voyage''' was the name of a thirteen part television series produced by [[Carl Sagan]] and [[Ann Druyan]] which was first broadcast in the [[Public Broadcasting Service]] in 1980 and featured a soundtrack by [[Vangelis]]. It won an Emmy and a Peabody award and has been since broadcast in 60 countries and seen by more than 500 million people, according to the NASA Office of Space Science. |
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Sagan's historical description of [[Hypatia of Alexandria]] and the burning of the [[Library of Alexandria]] has been criticized by historians who interpret the sources on Hypatia's life |
Sagan's historical description of [[Hypatia of Alexandria]] and the burning of the [[Library of Alexandria]] has been criticized by historians who interpret the sources on Hypatia's life and the end of the library differently and who believe that Sagan should have made clear that there is a scholarly controversy on this issue. Other parts of Cosmos were controversial among the general public, though hardly among scientists, such as Sagan's straight-forward treatment of [[astrology]] as a [[pseudoscience]] and his equally straight-forward description of [[evolution]] as a fact, not just a theory. |
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Cosmos has long been unavailable after its initial release because of copyright issues with the included music, but has recently been re-released on DVD. |
Cosmos has long been unavailable after its initial release because of copyright issues with the included music, but has recently been re-released on DVD. |
Revision as of 23:36, 30 November 2002
Cosmos: A Personal Voyage was the name of a thirteen part television series produced by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan which was first broadcast in the Public Broadcasting Service in 1980 and featured a soundtrack by Vangelis. It won an Emmy and a Peabody award and has been since broadcast in 60 countries and seen by more than 500 million people, according to the NASA Office of Space Science.
Sagan's historical description of Hypatia of Alexandria and the burning of the Library of Alexandria has been criticized by historians who interpret the sources on Hypatia's life and the end of the library differently and who believe that Sagan should have made clear that there is a scholarly controversy on this issue. Other parts of Cosmos were controversial among the general public, though hardly among scientists, such as Sagan's straight-forward treatment of astrology as a pseudoscience and his equally straight-forward description of evolution as a fact, not just a theory.
Cosmos has long been unavailable after its initial release because of copyright issues with the included music, but has recently been re-released on DVD.
The thirteen parts are:
I: The Shores Of the Cosmos
- Light years, galaxies, stars, planets: numbers and distances, where we are located (local group)
- The Library of Alexandria
- Eratosthenes and the circumference of Earth
- The Cosmic Calendar: from the beginning of the universe to the "arrival" of humans
II: One Voice In the Cosmic Fugue
- Evolution through natural selection, from microbes to man
- Speculation about life in Jupiter's clouds
- Creation of the "molecules of life" in a laboratory experiment
- The development of life on the Cosmic Calendar, and the Cambrian Explosion
III: The Harmony Of the Worlds
- Astronomy vs. Astrology
- Ptolemy and the geocentric world view
- Johannes Kepler and Tycho Brahe
- Kepler's laws
IV: Heaven and Hell
- The Tunguska Event, the composition and origin of comets
- Asteroids and impact craters
- The planet Venus in fiction and fact
- Venus as an example of the greenhouse effect
V: Blues For A Red Planet
- H.G. Wells and The War of the Worlds
- Percival Lowell's false vision of "canals" on Mars
- Robert Goddard and early rocket-building
- The Viking probes and their search for life on Mars
VI: Travellers' Tales
- The Netherlands in the 17th century
- The life and work of Christian Huygens and his contemporaries
- The Voyager probes (first images of Jupiter and its moons)
VII: The Backbone of Night
- The realization that stars are suns
- The Milky Way and its history in culture
- The Ionian philosophers: Anaximander, Democritus, Pythagoras, Aristarchus, Empedocles, Thales
- Teaching children about the cosmos
VIII: Travels In Space and Time
IX: The Lives Of the Stars
X: The Edge Of Forever
XI: The Persistence Of Memory
XII: Encyclopedia Galactica
XIII: Who Speaks For Earth?
Carl Sagan also wrote a book called Cosmos (1980), which is similarly structured and contains most of the information from the series, and some information not found in it.