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

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.
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". Frasa ini pun mendapatkan bilangan fiktif khusus bernama Sagan.




Referensi






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"

Kata Kunci Pencarian:

• Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium
• Skeptisisme ilmiah
• Isi Piringan Emas Voyager
• Nick Sagan
• Billions and Billions
• Voyager Golden Record
• Wheat and chessboard problem
• Carl Sagan
• Contents of the Voyager Golden Record
• Militarisation of space
• Timeline of the far future
• Human overpopulation
• Biodiversity
• List of books about skepticism