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Dec 22, 2010

Saud rated it:

لو كنت سوف أقرأ كتاب علمياً واحداً في حياتي, بل لو كنت سوف أقراء كتاباً بشرياً واحداً, سوف أختار كتاب الكون لكارل ساغان.

عادة يكون هدف الكتب العلمية التي تكتب لغير المختصين هو تبسيط المعلومة, لكن كتاب الكون يسلك مسلكا أخر, كتاب الكون كتاب يتأمل في الكون.

يحوي كتاب الكون ثلاثة عشر فصلاً, هذه الفصول كتبت بأسلوب غير تراكمي؛ بمعنى أنك تستطيع قراءة أي فصل دون أن تقرأ الفصول التي قبله, وتتباين هذه الفصول في مواضيعها وفي مجالات هذه المواضيع, فالكتاب يتحدث عن مكاننا في الكون, وأصل More...

6 comments like (16 people liked it)

Apr 13, 2011

Daniella rated it:

I'm not sure what I could possibly say about Cosmos that hasn't already been said by countless others in the 28 years since its publication, and likely in a far more intelligent and eloquent way than I ever could. But upon recently reading this book for the first time (which may seem a bit belated, but I am, after all, only 23) it instantly became one of my favorites, a status not easily attained by any book, and so I feel compelled to say something, to expound upon its many virtues and why it More...

0 comments like (12 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Esther rated it:

Can I give this one ten stars? If I had a religion, I would be a Carl Saganian. Love him so much.

3 comments like (25 people liked it)

Aug 01, 2008

Rob rated it:

A gorgeous book in every possible way. From the lush illustration and clever diagrams clear through to Sagan's lyrical and at times whimsical narrative, this is the science book for non-scientists. (And if you are a scientist, may this be a lesson in how to tell your story.) Sagan makes the astronomy and the math and the mind-boggling complexity of the universe not only comprehensible but palatable. He wraps up our history as a species into the history of the universe (such that we can even More...

5 comments like (7 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Deb rated it:

This book was my bible when I was an enemy of God. As a stubbornly devout atheist, this was the book I turned to for justification of my proud and arrogant rejection of my Creator. Instead of reading this pile of conjecture, I recommend reading the Holy Bible (then get on your knees and repent before the holy God who gave you life and sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to pay the penalty for your lawlessness and sin). :-)

27 comments like (5 people liked it)

Nov 14, 2011

Pandasurya rated it:

Sebelum kematiannya Newton menulis:
Saya tidak tau, apa pandangan dunia tentang saya. Tetapi menurut saya, saya adalah seorang anak kecil yang sedang bermain-main di tepi pantai. Saya mengalihkan perhatian saya dari waktu ke waktu, dan kemudian menemukan sebutir batu yang lebih halus atau sebuah kerang yang lebih indah, sementara lautan kebenaran yang besar berada di depan saya, menunggu untuk ditemukan (Newton, Kosmos, h. 91)

Kosmos adalah semua yang atau selalu pernah atau sela More...

59 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 10, 2008

Z rated it:

Let's put it simply. Cosmos is required reading for everyone who lives on this planet. It will give you a sense of perspective that nothing else can -- no lofty ideology, no omniscient religion, no inspiring quotations can explain things quite as clearly as Carl Sagan's treatise on science, reality, and the nature of things in this universe. Mind-bending and dazzling, and best of all, uncluttered by confusing scientific terminology. A book worthy of all the positive superlatives I can think of b More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jul 23, 2007

Roddy rated it:

Stunning, beautiful prose, excellent description and metaphor, incredibly accessible. Its also one of those books where you get to see the author's own genius slip into the pages accidentally, every so often. This book is the book A Brief History of Time wants to be. Problem is, ABHOT is much more boring and high concept. Sagan is and ever will be the great teacher of the masses in my opinion. This book starts out simpler than ABHOT - here on earth. It begins with what you know and slowly expand More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Tony rated it:

The best book ever written.

A masterful work encompassing the whole of human existence and the universe, with a focus on science.

Sagan discusses
- evolution,
- Kepler, astrology and acceptance of truth in spite of what outcome is desired,
- Venus and Mars, including the made-up belief of life on Mars a century ago,
- the Voyager spacecrafts' Grand Tour of the Outer Planets (a rare alignment),
- ancient Greek scientists,
- Relativity,
- More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 09, 2007

GeekChick rated it:

While the PBS series is dated now in its special effects, the ability of Sagan to inspire the wonderment of science and our connection with the universe is unparalleled to this day. I recommend the hardback edition, which has excellent photographs and other images.

I read somewhere that Cosmos has sold more books in foreign languages than any book other than the Bible. I hope this is true. It is a book that everyone should read, and if you can watch the series, do so! (just acce More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Amy rated it:

I think I could categorize this book as "life-changing" for me. I think the reason I am interested in subjects such as classics and anthropology can be traced to this book! It's a very broad look at the history of the universe and the history of science, so even though it is a good 20+ years old, most of it still stands. Sagan writes in an engaging and accessible manner. This is definitely a great book for people who are interested in science, but a little afraid to approach a book More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Nov 15, 2007

Alyson rated it:

This is an amazing and inspired book. One of three books I have purchased numerous times only to give away to someone whom I thought could appreciate both the concepts presented, but the sheer poetry of Sagan's words. As close to a bible as I have ever owned, the brilliance and mystery of our existence, the smallness and yet complete miraculousness of being is captured in these pages. Even if the advanced concepts of science may be beyond some readers, I urge you not to be frustrated and to More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 06, 2011

David added it

What is the point of human existence? A question posed and explored in great depth in this interesting book by Carl Sagan. Sagan takes us on a journey to shows us what it means to be human. To cut a long story short, he shows us that humanity is the drive for exploration and the pursuit of knowledge. He takes us back to the earliest written works of all the great civilisations from antiquity and charts the progression that humans have made in understanding where we are in the grand scheme of th More...

0 comments like

Jan 18, 2009

Luke rated it:

This book had been on my list for a while and in my possession even longer. I decided it would get bumped up to "on-deck" when I saw a stranger holding it and overheard her commenting to a friend: "I read Cosmos at least 1 time a year."

Having read Cosmos, I won't read it once a year, but I will make an effort to re-read the book while I'm still a young adult and hopefully read it again at a later date beyond that. The material in this book is awe inspiring and C More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 22, 2011

Shaun rated it:

This is a excellent book that bridges the information that Astronomers, Physicists, Biologists, Geologists, Anthropologists, Archeologists, Historians, and Philosophers have gained over the years of human existance to the common man.

It is a great read for the person who craves to understand what our Intellectual Elite have uncovered throughout the thousands of years of our existence.

Not only does Carl Sagan discuss the modern findings of the time but goes even deeper into More...

0 comments like

Jul 25, 2011

Matthew rated it:

2010 marked the thirtieth anniversary of the original publication of Carl Sagan's bestselling book Cosmos. The book itself is a companion piece to his thirteen part documentary series, which won both an Emmy and a Peabody Award at the time of its original broadcast and has subsequently become the most watched PBS program in the world. It also, of course spawned this book would go on to become a major bestseller with over five million copies being printed to this very day. Why is that?

More...

0 comments like

Aug 18, 2010

Bob rated it:

"Cosmos" is mostly about the Earth and humans. Sagan spends some time in outer space, primarily in our local galaxy. The Big Bang and the life and death of stars are discussed primarily in relationship to ourselves. We are, he says in language he uses so well, remote descendants of the Big Bang. We are, he also says, "solar powered." Much of the rest of this book is on the intellectual history about how we have come to know the world beyond the earth, and how we are now More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jan 05, 2010

Stafford rated it:

In my view, this book and the accompanying PBS series combined into one entity is Carl Sagan’s masterpiece. He fuses astronomy, history, philosophy, religion, biography, speculation, and art into this project in such an unique and astonishing way that one can’t help but be completely enthralled with the information given. We start off as a passenger on a ‘spaceship of the imagination’ that takes us back and forth through time from the moment of the Big Bang to the end of the Earth – either by th More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 28, 2011

Linda rated it:

In the life of a human being 30 years might seem as a lot of time, but compared to 30 years for modern science, it seems less than minuscule. A lot has happened since Cosmos was written and some of the theories expressed there are dated, some seemingly unanswerable questions have been answered and there are plenty of new pages of history to discover.

That being said, I never approached reading Cosmos as a science book and I believe that nobody should. While it still contains some deal More...

0 comments like

Nov 23, 2011

Trevor rated it:

This is not just a sit-down-and-read-straight-through kind of book. It's more of a coffee table book, but that label tends to belittle its contents. This is a hugely eye-opening, all-encompassing coverage of the collective universe as experienced by the human race so far.

The book's general theme, as with the TV series upon which it is based, is the uniqueness of human life in the midst of so much astrophysical indifference and chaos. The bulk of the text provides scientific facts abo More...

0 comments like

Oct 03, 2011

Scott rated it:

My grandfather gave me the hardback version of this when I was 8 years old. I recently rediscovered it and finally read it with my adult mind.

Sagan has a calm, rational voice that explains not only the science of astronomy and others, but the human nature of curiosity, experimentation, and the unfortunate tendency to suppress and eradicate the inconvenient or that which is incongruous with contemporary dogma. He filled an uncommon role in the scientific community: the compassionate, More...

0 comments like

Aug 27, 2011

Allison rated it:

I was a little leery about the value of reading this book. 30 years is a lot of time in science (radio astronomy, for instance -- the capability Sagan uses to define technical civilizations -- is twice as old now as it was then), to say nothing of political and economic realities. I wasn't sure whether the whole thing would just be tremendously outdated.

And... it is a little obsolete. Obsolete with a caveat though. Most notably is the fact that the book was written during the height of More...

0 comments like

Apr 02, 2008

Joe rated it:

As James A. Michener stated in his review of this masterpiece: "iridescent." Cosmos not only opened the eyes of millions of people to the majesty and the mystery of Astronomy and Cosmology. It also opened millions of minds to the wonders of modern science and its deeply rooted origins in human history. This book is the superlative cornerstone of Sagan's wonderfully insightful body of scientific literary work.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 01, 2011

Steve rated it:

The trouble with a lot of science books is that they are really expanded scientific papers and as a result are hard to follow if the reader is not already fairly knowledgeable about the basics of the subject matter. Others are packed with formulae and jargon that disrupt the rhythm of the narrative and are again difficult to follow. Not only is this book not an example of either of these two categories, the style of prose is almost poetic too and puts it on a par with works such as Dante’s Divin More...

0 comments like

Dec 17, 2009

Kaput rated it:

This is one of the most absorbing books I've ever read. I kept finding myself reading it when I really should have been getting on with other things.

A lot of people think of science as sterile and uninspiring, inaccessible, elitist, maybe even a little dull. Feelings of wonder and reverence are considered the possessions of the spiritual. People often think we need make-believe to inhabit a magical world but Carl Sagan thought differently. He saw planet earth and our place in the cos More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 25, 2010

أشرف marked it as to-read

توصية من سعود العمر

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jan 29, 2009

Nicole rated it:

Please don't let the whole "physics" thing scare you off. My high school physics teacher in Michigan, Don Solms, introduced me to Carl Sagan, and I wish I could thank him today. Mr. Solms, if you're out there, you accomplished every teacher's goal to make a difference in a kid's life. To say that Sagan was a genius is the understatement of the century. The fact that he made physics accessible to a mass audience is reason enough to delve into his writing. However, the beauty of Sag More...

0 comments like

Apr 25, 2010

Amy (mrsAmy#s) rated it:

This book could explain to anyone why I went into science. My freshman year of college, I had an awesome astronomy professor, who often sounded like Carl Sagan in this book. He was inspirational, and this book inspires the imagination and soul- it is a book that resonates deeply with me.

I wish everyone would read this book. It is very accessible, even to non-scientists, though scientists in particular I think will find this book fascinating. It is a book I read with a pen in hand, More...

0 comments like

Aug 21, 2009

White rated it:

This book is a bit different from the usual space and time sensationalism of hard core science. I like Cosmos because Sagen starts centuries back to when men's thoughts began to contemplate the universe and life as we know it. He brings all aspects of science into the "stuff of stars" such as reproduction and the anomalies of life.

It's a more broad overlook of what makes up our science before he shoots us out into space.

I was left with a connection of the More...

0 comments like

Jun 15, 2009

Mrs_M rated it:

This book is a bit different from the usual space and time sensationalism of hard core science. I like Cosmos because Sagen starts centuries back to when men's thoughts began to contemplate the universe and life as we know it. He brings all aspects of science into the "stuff of stars" such as reproduction and the anomalies of life.

It's a more broad overlook of what makes up our science before he shoots us out into space.

I was left with a connection of the More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

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