Nini Bennett. Carl Sagan: Oor sterrekunde en poësie
Friday, February 18th, 2022
Carl Sagan
Die Amerikaanse sterrekundige, ruimtewetenskaplike, kosmoloog en skrywer, Carl Sagan het bekendheid verwerf vir onder meer sy wetenskaplike navorsing oor die moontlikheid van ekstraterrestriële lewe – maar dis met sy televisiereeks, Cosmos: A personal voyage dat hy verewig is as huishoudelike naam. Kykers sal Sagan onthou as die sjarmante en welsprekende aanbieder, kenmerkend met ’n mosterdkleurige corduroy-baadjie en bypassende rolnektrui. Dink ’n mens aan hierdie intellektuele reus, dan dink jy aan die wyse waarop hy komplekse begrippe op byna hipnotiese wyse kon kommunikeer en selfs verromantiseer. As wetenskapkommunikeerder per excellence het Sagan kennelik nié binne die konvensionele begrensings van tradisionele vakgebiede gedink nie. Hy was skrywer, medeskrywer of redakteur van meer as 20 boeke en 600 wetenskapgeskrifte, maar word ook onthou vir sy populêre wetenskapfaksie soos The dragons of Eden: Speculations on the evolution (1977), Broca’s brain: Reflections on the romance of science (1979) en Pale blue dot: A vision of the human future in space (1994). Sy roman, Contact (1985) is verwerk tot film. Sagan het sy kennis van die ruimte- en die geesteswetenskappe gedeel met leke- sowel as akademiese gehore. Ten spyte van kritiek deur sommige tydgenote dat hy slegs op die popularisering van die wetenskappe gefokus het, het hy ’n reuse bydrae gelewer tot wetenskaplike bewusmakingsveldtogte. Inteendeel: as wetenskapkommunikeerder was hy ook betrokke by die ruimtesendings van die Mariner-, Pioneer- en Voyagerreekse. Hy het gedien as voorsitter van die komitees wat die Goue Plate aan Voyager 1 en 2 in hulle onderskeie ruimtesendings vergesel het. Die Voyager Goue Plate is in 1977 aan boord van die Voyager 1 en 2 gelanseer. Laasgenoemde plate bevat klanke en beelde wat lewe op planeet aarde verteenwoordig: musiek, natuurklanke, groeteboodskappe uit 55 antieke en moderne tale, sketse, foto’s en selfs ’n stemboodskap van president Jimmy Carter. Die doel van die Goue Plate was om met buiteaardse wesens te kommunikeer – en volgens Sagan sou die Voyager-ruimtetuie net ontdek – én die plate gevolglik gespeel word – as ’n gevorderde ruimtereisende beskawing daarmee kon kontak maak.
Sagan het in 1960 sy PhD in sterrekunde en astrofisika aan die Universiteit van Chicago verwerf. Sy latere navorsing handel onder meer oor stofstorms op Mars en die oorsprong van lewe op aarde. Hy was eers werksaam as professor aan die Universiteit van Harvard alvorens hy die grootste deel van sy lewe as professor in sterrekunde aan die Cornell-Universiteit deurgebring het.
Sagan is bekend en geliefd om sy buitengewone taalvaardighede: nie net was hy ’n veelsydige wetenskaplike nie; hy was ook literêr begaafd. “He was, quite simply, the best science educator in the world this century.” Só beweer Yervant Terzian, wat op ’n stadium die hoof van Cornell-Universiteit se departement sterrekunde was. Sagan word onthou vir sy besondere poëtiese aanslag as wetenskapkommunikeerder. Nie alle wetenskaplikes beskik oor die vermoë om hulle kennis oor te dra nie, maar Sagan staan kop en skouers bo sy tydgenote uit. Die tweede helfte van die 20ste eeu was “die goue eeu” wat gekenmerk is deur kosmiese ontdekkings en Sagan was waarskynlik die verteenwoordiger van dié tydsgewrig. Hy het in sy leeftyd sowel as postuum ’n magdom toekennings vir sy werk ontvang, onder meer die Pulitzer-prys vir niefiksie vir The dragons of Eden in 1978.
Ander wetenskapskrywers wat wetenskapfaksie as poëtiese prosa aanbied, is byvoorbeeld die ekoloog en marienebioloog, Rachel Carson met haar blitsverkoper Under the sea wind: A naturalist’s picture of ocean life (1941), of die bosboukundige, Peter Wohlleben se wetenskaplik-poëtiese besinning oor bome, The hidden life of trees (2015). Ek het oor die interseksie van hierdie lewenswetenskappe en poësie in die volgende blogs geskryf:
asook
’n Afrikaanse voorbeeld van so ’n wetenskaplik-poëtiese narratief is Die groot gedagte: Abstrakte weefsel van die kosmos (1998) deur Gideon Joubert, ’n werk wat bekroon is met die Andrew Murrayprys en die Insig-prys vir Afrikaanse niefiksie. Joubert put mildelik uit die wêreldletterkunde en poësie – en slaag daarin om ’n sinvolle simbiose tussen die twee velde te bewerk.
Iewers in die argiewe van die internet het ek egter die volgende besondere artefak ontdek: ’n insetsel uit ’n ou skoolkoerant, geskryf deur die 15-jarige Carl Sagan. Dit was ’n moeitevolle proses om die stukkies vergeelde papier te vergroot, byeen te bring en oor te tik om sodoende ’n teksrekord van hierdie waardevolle berig te skep.
Dit is die jaar 1950 en die bron is Wawawhack, the Rahway High School Student Newspaper Vol. VI.:
SPACE, TIME AND THE POET
Carl Sagan
It is an exhilarating experience to read poetry and observe its correlation with modern science. Profound scientific thought is hardly a rarity among the poets. Often a scientist will pen a verse to clarify his meaning. Although far from profound, the following anonymous stanza is typical:
“Twinkle, twinkle, great big star,
Astronomers know just what you
are.
The self-same stuff is space be-
tween,
Its atoms rare and quite un-
seen.”
Rapidly approaching reality is the dream of space travel-flight to other planets. This flight will be accomplished by rockets with huge fins for stabilization in atmosphere. Observe this prediction of Alfred Lord Tennyson:
“For I dipt into the future…
Saw the heavens fill with com-
merce, argosies of magic sails.”
The commerce Tennyson speaks of is obvious, for the other bodies of this solar system have much the same chemical composition as the earth. Edgar Allan Poe may be taken literally:
“Where can it be
This land of Eldorado?
‘Over the mountains
Of the Moon…”
Then, someday, man will venture beyond this planetary system, through “A dark illimitable ocean, without bound,” (Milton) to the planets of the other stars. One wonders what Helen Hunt Jackson meant by:
“Who knows what myriad colo-
nies there are
Of fairest fields, and rick, un-
dreamed of grains
Thick planted in the distant
shining plains
Which we call sky because they
lie so far?
Oh, write of me…
‘Emigrated to another star’!
Many have questioned Man’s right to the universe, as expressed by T.S. Eliot:
“Do I dare
Disturb the universe?”
They feel as Karl Jay Shapiro does:
“Look and remember. Look upon
this sky:
Look deep and deep into the
sea-clean air,
The unconfined, the terminus of
prayer.
Speak now and speak into the
hallowed dome.
What do you hear? What does
the sky reply?
The heavens are taken; this is
not your home.”
They feel interstellar travel is merely:
“…drifting….
Toward the impossible,
Towards the inaccessible
Towards the ultimate
Towards the silence
Towards the eternal…”
– John Gould Fletcher.
When the time comes, however, there will be those who will stand up and say with Robert Frost:
“They cannot scare me with
their empty spaces
Between stars – stars where no
human race is, and ex-
plore the cosmos,
Star over star, a larger lovelier
unknown heaven beyond
the known!”
– George Cabot Lodge.
And then, in the far-distant future, will come the end of the earth. In the famous lines of T.S. Eliot:
“This is the way the world
ends –
Not with a bang but a whimper.”
The great contemporary philosopher George Santayana had his own concept of the matter:
“…the patient earth, made
dry and barren,
Sheds all her herbage in a final
winter.
And the Gods turn eyes to some
far distant
Bright constellation.”
By now, after journeying through space over the galactic hub and through time to the terminus of our puny planet, we must be impressed with a feeling of Man’s utter insignificance before the universe. Then, we turn to the work containing perhaps the greatest poetry – the Bible – and humbly inquire:
“When I consider Thy heavens,
The work of thy fingers,
The moon and the stars, which
Thou hast ordained;
What is man?”
Suggestions for further study:
- Poems – William Butler Yeats
- The Pocket Book of Verse – Speare
- The Collected Verse of T.S. Eliot
- Poems – Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- Poems – John Donne
- Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam – Fitzgerald
- On the Nature of Things – Lucretius
- Paradise Lost – Milton
- Poems – George William Russell (“A E”)
- The Bible
Die jong Sagan
Dit is onmiskenbaar die stem van Carl Sagan, ’n seun met ’n droom om iewers in die toekoms ’n sterrekundige te word. En of die leser verras, geamuseerd of verwonderd staan voor die lees van die stuk: dit is duidelik dat Sagan die liefdesverhouding tussen die wetenskappe en poësie as jongeling reeds gesnap het. Hy was besonder belese en kon op daardie stadium reeds sy sterrekundenarratief deur die bril van poësie bekyk. Die leser het deernis met sy leeslys vir voorgestelde studie wat die Bybel as finale bronverwysing lys. Die latere Sagan sou ’n veldtog teen bygeloof en magiese denke by wyse van geïnstitusionaliseerde wêreldgodsdienste (en skyngodsdienste, byvoorbeeld die New Age-beweging) voer. Dis interessant om te noem dat die skrywer se fassinasie met die kosmos allereers, vóór sy studiejare gevorm is deur die poësie van groot digters, die musiek van die sfere, ’n residu wat lewenslank teenwoordig sou wees in sy werk. Die bloudruk van die latere Sagan blyk duidelik uit hierdie berig.
Reeds in die begin van die ikoniese televisiereeks, Cosmos: A personal voyage maak Sagan gebruik van ’n gedig in die vorm van ’n inkantasie of towerspreuk teen tandpyn. Hy merk op dat ons voorvaders die mees geringe of alledaagse gebeure in verband gebring het met kosmiese verskynsels. ’n Poëtiese en magiese voorbeeld is die onderstaande vers, “’n Inkantasie teen die wurm” soos dit gebruik is deur die Assiriërs 1000 jaar v.C. Die spreuk begin met die oorsprong van die heelal en eindig met ’n kuur teen tandpyn. Die gode Anu, Ea en Shamash is teenwoordig:
After Anu had created the heaven,
And the heaven had created the earth,
And the earth had created the rivers,
And the rivers had created the canals,
And the canals had created the morass,
And the morass had created the worm,
The worm went before Shamash, weeping,
His tears flowing before Ea:
‘What wilt thou give me for my food,
What wilt thou give me for my drink?’
‘I will give thee the dried fig
And the apricot.’
‘What are these to me? The dried fig
And the apricot!
Lift me up, and among the teeth
And the gums let me dwell!
Because thou hast said this, O worm,
May Ea smite thee with the might of
His hand!
’n Artikel soos dié sou nie volledig wees sonder om te verwys na Sagan se “Pale blue dot” nie. Op 14 Februarie 1990 is die laaste foto’s van Voyager 1 ontvang toe dit na die aarde teruggekyk het op ’n verstommende afstand van 5,9 miljard km. Dit het ’n grysblou kolletjie ingesluit. Hierdie besinning oor die aarde is seker een van die mooiste odes wat ooit oor ons planeet geskryf is. Hier volg ’n uittreksel:
Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.
— Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994
Carl Sagan het talle digters geïnspireer. Sinoniem met “Pale blue dot” is die humanitêre gedig, “A brave and startling truth” wat Maya Angelou vir die vyftigste herdenking van die Verenigde Nasies geskryf het. Sagan se besinning en die foto van Voyager 1 het gedien as impetus tot dié gedig – en beide tekste resoneer as ’n soort triomf ten spyte van die nietigheid van die mens op aarde.
Maya Angelou
A brave and startling truth
We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth
And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cool our palms
When we come to it
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate
And faces scooted with scorn are scrubbed clean
When battlefields and coliseum
No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters
Up with the bruised and bloody grass
To lie in identical plots in foreign soil
When the rapacious storming of the churches
The screaming racket in the temples have ceased
When the pennants are waving gaily
When the banners of the world tremble
Stoutly in the good, clean breeze
When we come to it
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders
And children dress their dolls in flags of truce
When land mines of death have been removed
And the aged can walk into evenings of peace
When religious ritual is not perfumed
By the incense of burning flesh
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake
By nightmares of abuse
When we come to it
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids
With their stones set in mysterious perfection
Nor the Gardens of Babylon
Hanging as eternal beauty
In our collective memory
Not the Grand Canyon
Kindled into delicious color
By Western sunsets
Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe
Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji
Stretching to the Rising Sun
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,
Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores
These are not the only wonders of the world
When we come to it
We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe
Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger
Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace
We, this people on this mote of matter
In whose mouths abide cankerous words
Which challenge our very existence
Yet out of those same mouths
Come songs of such exquisite sweetness
That the heart falters in its labor
And the body is quieted into awe
We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines
When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear
When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.
– Maya Angelou
Verwysings:
https://archive.org/stream/Cosmos-CarlSagan/cosmos-sagan_djvu.txt
