Contact

Contact by Carl Sagan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My first Carl Sagan book :)
I have never understood why I am such an ardent fiction fan. I devour science fiction so happily as I do Lord of the Rings. I don't understand any of the inter-galactic concepts, am almost primate in my understanding of Einstein, Planck, etc. theories but that doesn’t deter me from thoroughly enjoying science fiction.

Ellie, a radio astronomer is deeply committed to the Argus project which is about listening on different frequencies to search for messages from some other beings. Just as the project is to be shut down, there arrives a message. At first it seems to be an aberration but soon the world joins in and starts noting down the message. It soon reveals itself to be the blueprint of a machine. A machine that probably would take us to them. It gets built and Ellie is one of the chosen five to represent humanity to the other beings. They succeed. Or so they think! When they narrate their experience back on earth it is not taken seriously for they have absolutely no proof.

I particularly like the ending, because the end conversation between Kitz and Ellie is identical to the conversation between Ellie and Rankin/Joss with the tables turned. In Kitz-Ellie conversation Ellie is trying to prove a point to disapprove the hoax theory while Kitz is skeptical to anything she has to say because it’s not backed up by data and in the other case Ellie is the one skeptical of religion/God because others have no data points.

Some personal favourite lines from the book –

I have always thought an agnostic is an atheist without the courage of his convictions.

I know we all have emotions but let’s bear in mind exactly what emotions are. They are motivations for adaptive behaviour from a time when we were too stupid to figure things out.

You are not worried about being lost, Palmer. You are worried about not being central, not the reason the universe was created. There's plenty of order in my universe. Gravitation, electromagnetism, quantum mechanics, superunification, they all involve laws. And as for behaviour, why can't we figure out what's in our best interest-as a species?

Isn't a gram of observation worth a ton of theory?


Update:
Watched the movie that was based on the book. Like all movies that are made from books, it could not create the magic the book did.I cringed at the romantic liaison between Ellie and Plamer......but then got over it simply because Matthew McConaughey played the role :D


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