Saturday 23 January 2010

Why I love Carl Sagan

Science is a mosaic. Good science from disparate fields seems to conveniently converge to help us gradually gain a clearer overall view of our universe and make valid predictions based on that knowledge.

No one joined this rich mosaic of scientists together more sublimely and eloquently and passionately communicated this amassed wisdom better than Carl Sagan. Thanks Carl.




Click to embiggen and stand well back for a clearer view, or get up close and see how Carl cut his teeth on Einstein and Feynman.



32 comments:

Florian Freistetter said...

Fantastic! Is it possible to obtain a large file of this picture? This has to be printed in large and put on my living room wall!

Crispian Jago said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Crispian Jago said...

Florian,

I made a 300dpi 50 MB version first that was too big for the blog, but ideal for posters, email me at crispian@hampshireskeptics.org and I'll send you a copy.

Daniel Pope said...

You include the mosaic itself, thus implying that Sagan stood on his own gigantic shoulders. Interesting.

Turtles all the way down?

Crispian Jago said...

I also included one person who is technically not a scientist, but has vast scientific understanding and I'm sure no one will complain about is inclusion. Anyone spot him?

Daniel Pope said...

Dan Dennett?

Crispian Jago said...

Daniel

Well spotted Sir

Psiloiordinary said...

Best blog post of the decade?

Get's my vote!

Best regards,

Psi

Alice said...

This is just utterly wonderful. Thank you!

Artificial Selection said...

Metric awesome.

Kyle Nicholas said...

Dang! Is there a way to order a poster-size print of this? I don't have a printer and I wouldn't want to take this file to FedEx Kinko's because they might have a problem printing something copywrighted. Someone sell me a poster of this!

Crispian Jago said...

Oleg,

I'm looking into to getting them printed as posters.

I'll probabbly re make the image at an even higher res with more cells. I restricted the number of cells for the blog version so you could identify the scientists, but if it is poster sized I can increase the rows and columns by quite a bit.

I'll post an update if I am able to produce the posters, although anyone wanting one will have to cover my production costs and P&P. If I am able to make some, i will not be doing it for profit

Hazor said...

I would definitely buy it in poster form as well.

Artificial Selection said...

I'm down for a poster, too.

Tracy King said...

I'd be interested in posters for TAM if you have copyright clearance for any of the photos that are still in copyright.

Laurie T. said...

Very cool! Where's Neil deGrasse Tyson?

helensotiriadis said...

i'd be interested in a poster as well.

Crispian Jago said...

Laurie T.

Good Question, In many ways Neil has taken on Carl’s role as chief science promoter to the general public. He also tells a very nice anecdote of when he first met Carl Sagan. I originally intended to use scientists who preceded Carl to show how he combined their knowledge, but as I included Brian Cox, I think I should have also included Neil. I’m going to make a higher res version for a poster and I’ll make sure I’ll add him in.
Let me know if you spot any other glaring omissions

Unknown said...

I'd definitely be interested in a poster.

Alice said...

Yup, I'm up for a post if it isn't huge or hugely expensive!

Elwood said...

Very clever, Mr Jago! I was looking for the other guy with a white beard - well played, sir.

geekman said...

Excellent! I would most definitely buy a copy of this if it were made available.

Will you include a key to the mosaic images with the printed version? Not all of us are science history supergeeks...

macvinnie19 said...

Not only did i embiggen it, after viewing it, i found it to be perfectly cromulent.

Gerald Guild said...

Very Cool! Like Alice, I'm in for a poster if it is not hugely expensive.

Edward Devlin said...

I'd buy two posters. One for me and another as a present. Providing the costing wouldn't be exhorbitant, of course. Thanks for a great post.

Anonymous said...

Several of the small thumbnails in the mosaic are of Carl Sagan in the same pose as the main image. You should therefore make the image fully recursive by replacing the thumbnails of Carl Sagan by thumbnails of the mosaic of Carl Sagan. Repeat this replacement using the updated mosaic until you get bored.

geekman said...

Any word on when or if this will be printed and available for purchase?

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Shadeburst said...

Seems like I'm the only person here who read Contact. Add the matrix for the face of god and Carl Sagan turns out to be the very kind of person whom you parody.

Unknown said...

I know it's very late to be requesting a poster but I'm lusting after it. Is there any way I can get one?

Skaygraff said...

Hi, thats a great image, can u send it to me? Im form Mexico, grettings (I'll gonna send u an mail) Sorry for my bad english

Tarot Cards For Sale said...

Awesome, really. I wonder how much time was involved in creating this one. Truely a piece of art. To makes things easy, you can hold ctrl and then scroll in & out. That will zoom the page in/out. Thnx for sharing!