Cosmos

"This book was written almost 40 years ago by a famous astronomy Professor Carl Sagan from Cornell University. He trained as a biologist and then worked as an astronomy professor—a fact that permeates his story and creates a very multidisciplinary book. This book is more about general science and philosophy, but it also sheds a lot of light on how one needs to approach engineering. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter It explains 14 billion years of the evolution of the universe, a sort of engineering experiment on the largest possible scale. It spans all scales of space and time, describing everything from the largest scales of the universe to the smallest scales of molecules and atoms. It’s a good book for putting everything in perspective. It talks about space travel, and the evolution of the universe as a whole. It’s also a very optimistic book. It shows how the human race will have to develop in the future and how we’ll have to go to different places. I don’t think it does quite suggest that, but it does say that engineering will have to be part of our salvation, definitely. Engineering must be part of it, because we will have to find ways to continue to live on this planet. Then, if we want to conquer other planets or other worlds, we will need engineering to help us to go down that path. But, as I said, this is a multidisciplinary book and also a very philosophical book. It does not put engineering on some kind of pedestal, not at all. That’s why I think it’s helpful for putting things into perspective. Engineering is important, but our future security cannot be left to engineering alone. Sagan gives it the right weight."