BILLIONS AND BILLIONS: THOUGHTS ON LIFE AND DEATH AT THE BRINK OF THE MILLENNIUM

Book ID/图书代码： 01240009B32659

English Summary/英文概要： In the final book of his astonishing career, Carl Sagan brilliantly examines the burning questions of our lives, our world, and the universe around us. These luminous, entertaining essays travel both the vastness of the cosmos and the intimacy of the human mind, posing such fascinating questions as how did the universe originate and how will it end, and how can we meld science and compassion to meet the challenges of the coming century? Here, too, is a rare, private glimpse of Sagan’s thoughts about love, death, and God as he struggled with fatal disease. Ever forward-looking and vibrant with the sparkle of his unquenchable curiosity, Billions & Billions is a testament to one of the great scientific minds of our day.

Chinese Summary/中文概要： 萨根将把你认为平凡的事物，转化为深刻的见解，激发思想，使旧的观念焕然一新。并希望你在读完本书的内容之后，能愿意花些时间去思索未来。

萨根首先讲了量化的力量与美，指出对数字怀有恐惧，就等于剥夺了你自己的权利：放弃了理解以及改造世界的强而有力的工具。接着他对人类发问：不到1个世纪，我们把恐怖的武器的致死力量增强了10亿倍。人类会犯错，人类会杀死自己吗？在后，当感情与理智冲突时，当他自己面对死亡时，萨根温柔地说：“世界何等美妙，有这么多的爱及深邃的伦理道德，我们实在没有理由去编造那些没有实据的美丽谎言来欺骗自己。我认为比自欺更好的方法是直视死神的双眼，每日感谢生命给予我们那些短暂却丰盛的机遇”。(DB)

Awards/获奖情况：It is doubtful that there is anyone unfamiliar with noted astronomer and science writer Sagan’s ability to convey the wonder, excitement, and joy of science. This book is a wonderful, if eclectic, collection of essays, some reprinted from magazines of national prominence, covering a wide range of topics: the invention of chess, life on Mars, global warming, abortion, international affairs, the nature of government, and the meaning of morality. Writing with clarity and an understanding of human nature, Sagan offers hope for humanity’s future as he illuminates our ability to understand ourselves and to change the world for the better. The last chapter is an account of his struggle with myelodysplasia, the illness that finally took his life in December 1996. An epilog written by his wife is a personal account of the man rather than the scientist admired by so many. This last book is a fitting capstone to a distinguished career. Enthusiastically recommended.---James Olson, Northeastern Illinois Univ. Lib., Chicago, From Library Journal

Carl Sagan died last December, and as a result, these essays exude a feeling of interrupted eloquence. The celebrity planetary astronomer possibly had more books to write that could have compared favorably with his Cosmos (1980) or Pale Blue Dot (1994), but disappointingly, this collection does not bloom like those dependable library perennials. Perhaps expectations are overly inflated with a new Sagan exposition in hand--but here, expectations rapidly deflate upon seeing that the contents comprise much reprinted material, such as nonscience articles he and his wife and coauthor, Ann Druyan, wrote for a Sunday newspaper supplement. One Parade piece, advancing their argument in favor of legal abortion, sourly criticizes televangelist Pat Robertson for using his influence to mobilize opposition to the 1990 article, a point that skates over the sway the authors themselves were trying to exert in the abortion controversy by means of their article. In other chapters, the subjects are flat--an explanation of the origin of Sagan’s brand-name cliche"billions and billions" --or the subjects are rudimentary. Blemishes apart, this collection offers some worthwhile essays: his account of battling cancer or summaries of the enviro-political issues that he weighed in on, such as ozone depletion and the fossil fuels^-atmospheric warming nexus. However uneven and eclectic, this tome still flashes with Sagan’s curiosity, wonder, and humanity concerning the scientific enterprise.---Gilbert Taylor, From Booklist

About the Author/作者介绍： 【美】卡尔·萨根（Carl Sagan）美国天文学家、科普作家、科幻作家。艾萨克·阿西莫夫说生平只遇过两个人比他更为聪明，一个是计算机科学家马文·闵斯基，另一个就是卡尔·萨根，并推崇萨根为“历史中成功的科学普及家”。萨根提出让探测器搭载镌刻有人类问候信息的金属板和金唱盘，后者就是广为人知的“旅行者一号”和“旅行者二号”携带的“地球之音”唱片。康内尔大学荣誉校长评价说：萨根讲的题目是宇宙，而他的课堂是世界。萨根激发了无数人对科学和理性的热爱，为此他的墓志铭上写着：卡尔，你是我们在黑暗中的蜡烛。

Carl Sagan was the David Duncan Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences and Director of the Laboratory for Planetary Studies at Cornell University; Distinguished Visiting Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology; and the cofounder and President of the Planetary Society, the largest space-interest group in the world. For the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, he was an adviser on the Mariner, Voyager, and Viking unmanned space missions, and he briefed astronauts for journeys to the moon. His Peabody Award-winning public television series, Cosmos, has been seen by more than 500 million people in over sixty countries, and the accompanying book spent seventy weeks on The New York Times bestseller list. The author of thirty books, Sagan was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence in 1978, and his novel Contact, is now a major motion picture. In their posthumous award to Dr. Sagan of their highest honor, the National Science Foundation declared that his research transformed planetary science ... his gifts to mankind were infinite.

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