Anthology of Ideas

In February of 1990, Voyager 1 turned away from its primary mission and took a picture of the Earth from a distance of 6.4 billion kilometers (4 billion miles.) This picture featured the earth as a single small dot. A crumb on the surface of space, just lucky enough to rest inside one of many sunbeams many times its size. It demonstrated, graphically and irrefutably, what many people had believed for centuries: the earth is not special, and petty human conflicts were less important to the universe than an single ant’s life is to the earth.

Carl Sagan believed this wholeheartedly and this image inspired his book Pale Blue Dot. In response to this image he made the speech that is presented in the video in the next section. This video overlays Carl Sagan’s thoughts with images from movies that most people believe to represent themselves and their history. The power of the words combined with the visuals is stunning and well worth your time.

In February of 1990, Voyager 1 turned away from its primary mission and took a picture of the Earth from a distance of 6.4 billion kilometers (4 billion miles.) This picture featured the earth as a single small dot. A crumb on the surface of space, just lucky enough to rest inside one of many sunbeams many times its size. It demonstrated, graphically and irrefutably, what many people had believed for centuries: the earth is not special, and petty human conflicts were less important to the universe than an single ant’s life is to the earth.

Carl Sagan believed this wholeheartedly and this image inspired his book Pale Blue Dot. In response to this image he made the speech that is presented in the video in the next section. This video overlays Carl Sagan’s thoughts with images from movies that most people believe to represent themselves and their history. The power of the words combined with the visuals is stunning and well worth your time.