Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium

Billions and Billions

Pengarang	Carl Sagan
Penerbit	Ballantine Publishing Group
Tanggal terbit	1997
Halaman	322
ISBN	ISBN 0-345-37918-7
OCLC	39234941
Didahului oleh	The Demon-Haunted World
Diikuti oleh	The Varieties of Scientific Experience

Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium, diterbitkan oleh Random House tahun 1997, adalah buku terakhir yang ditulis oleh astronom dan tokoh sains populer Amerika Serikat Carl Sagan sebelum ia meninggal tahun 1996.^[1]

Buku ini merupakan koleksi esai yang ditulis Sagan dalam berbagai topik seperti pemanasan global, ledakan penduduk, kehidupan ekstraterestrial, moralitas, dan perdebatan aborsi. Bab terakhir menceritakan perjuangannya melawan myelodisplasia, penyakit yang akhirnya merenggut nyawanya pada Desember 1996. Istri Sagan, Ann Druyan, menulis epilog buku ini setelah kematian Carl Sagan.

Isi

Part I: The Power and Beauty of Quantification

1. Billions and Billions
2. The Persian Chessboard
3. Monday Night Hunters
4. The Gaze of God and the Dripping Faucet
5. Four Cosmic Questions
6. So Many Suns, So Many Worlds

Part II: What Are Conservatives Conserving?

7. The World That Came in the Mail
8. The Environment: Where Does Prudence Lie?
9. Croesus and Cassandra
10. A Piece of the Sky Is Missing
11. Ambush: The Warming of the World
12. Escape from Ambush
13. Religion and Science: An Alliance

Part III: Where Hearts and Minds Collide

14. The Common Enemy
15. Abortion: Is It Possible to Be Both "Pro-Life" and "Pro-Choice"
16. The Rules of the Game
17. Gettysburg and Now
18. The Twentieth Century
19. In the Valley of the Shadow

"Billions and billions"

Untuk membantu penonton Cosmos membedakan "millions" dengan "billions", Sagan menekankan huruf "b" saat mengucapkannya. Sagan tidak pernah mengatakan "billions and billions". Publik tiba-tiba mengaitkan frasa ini dengan Sagan karena leluconnya sempat tampil di Tonight Show. Saat meniru Sagan, Johnny Carson mengatakan "billions and billions".^[2] Frasa ini pun mendapatkan bilangan fiktif khusus bernama Sagan.

Referensi

^ Sagan, Carl (1997). Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium. Random House. ISBN 0-679-41160-7.
^ Carl Sagan takes questions more from his 'Wonder and Skepticism' CSICOP 1994 keynote, Skeptical Inquirer

Pranala luar

Description of the book including the epilogue by Ann Druyan
A review Diarsipkan 2006-06-21 di Wayback Machine. of the book
Video of skit from The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson mentioning "billions and billions"

Carl Sagan

Karier ilmiah

Kalender Kosmik
Piringan Emas Voyager
Plakat Pioneer
Pencarian kecerdasan ekstraterestrial (SETI)
Titik Biru Pucat

Buku

Sains	Mars and the Mind of Man (1971) The Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective (1973) The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence (1977) Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science (1979) Cosmos (1980) The Nuclear Winter: The World After Nuclear War (1983) Comet (1985) A Path Where No Man Thought: Nuclear Winter and the End of the Arms Race (1990) Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors: A Search for Who We Are (1993) Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994) The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (1995) Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium (1997) The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God (2006)
Fiksi	Contact (1985)

Sains

Mars and the Mind of Man (1971)
The Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective (1973)
The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence (1977)
Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science (1979)
Cosmos (1980)
The Nuclear Winter: The World After Nuclear War (1983)
Comet (1985)
A Path Where No Man Thought: Nuclear Winter and the End of the Arms Race (1990)
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors: A Search for Who We Are (1993)
Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994)
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (1995)
Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium (1997)
The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God (2006)