Dedication

This blog is dedicated to two men I consider to be among the greatest thinkers of the twentieth, or indeed any other century. These men not only pushed back the frontiers of science, each in his own way, but, more importantly, they took us all along for the ride!

I remember haunting the magazine racks in the fifties, looking for the next Asimov story to appear in one of he SF mags of the era. One of the first stories I remember reading concerned some Positronic robot or other, I think his name was Robbie… Like many others, I owe my fascination with science, to a large extent, to Isaac’s prolific pen. Now, I search the used bookstores looking for books of his I haven’t yet enjoyed. Every now and then, I find one!

Carl Sagan probably did more to popularize science than anyone before or since. Like Isaac, he had the rare gift of being able to explain the complex in terms anyone could understand. He was also one of the very few people I have ever met who actually spoke in complete paragraphs – the mark of a focused individual, who is absolutely “present.”

I was fortunate to meet Carl at Cornell, when someone in his lab was interested in purchasing a device made by a company I represented. My time with him was all too brief, but very illuminating. It’s a wonderful feeling when you meet an “idol” and discover their everything you thought they were. He was a wonderful human being.