Contact, by Sagan, Carl

One of the most interesting themes in SF, and also one of my personal favorites, is the theme of first contact. The theme is not exactly unique to SF – think of European contact with the New World, Roman contact with various barbarians, etc.- though these days it would probably seem so. In SF “first contact” stories deal with mankind's first contact with alien races. Even if you exclude all of the uses of this theme in Star Trek, the genre is chock full of examples. And although it is[…]

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Published:: 11.30.09 / 5pm

Category:: Reviews

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SandRider 04.05.11 / 11pm

I don’t know if it would be a spoiler,
but I think you might’ve mentioned
the ending – the computer’s output
from calculating Pi … I have used this
over and over for many, many years
as an example of what I believe “God”
could be … the intelligence *built-into*
the physics of the universe …

for me, that last little bit, and the idea it
represented, made this book worthwhile
and important …
Omphalos 04.05.11 / 11pm

Hey SR! I thought long and hard about that. I know how you feel about that passage, and I’ve thought along those same lines in the past, but I didn’t feel that Sagan developed the idea enough for a comment on it. I thought it might be a nice little gem for the reader to find unexpectedly. Still worth talking about though.

I’m pretty sure I’ve seen that idea elsewhere prior to this book, but I can’t remember where; mathematics being the “language of god” that contains a vague message that is taken as the voice of ancient intelligence. They also are looking into this idea in Starate: Universe righ now. Love that show.

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Contact, by Sagan, Carl

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