Who is Ann Druyan? (Info to prepare for our chat)

Chris OConnor

As you all know by now the chat with Ann Druyan will be on Thursday, September 2, 2004 at 9:00pm eastern. Use this thread to learn more about Ann Druyan so we can discuss a wide variety of subjects in this much anticipated author chat.

Contributions to the thread are welcome, but keep on topic. This is about Ann Druyan. I'll make numerous posts and keep the thread active and also make it a sticky topic.

Chris O'Connor

"For Every Winner, There Are Dozens Of Losers. Odds Are You're One Of Them"

Chris OConnor

Has everyone seen the movie Contact? By far this is my favorite movie of all times. Click that link and listen to the beautiful and powerful sound of an ETI sending a message to planet Earth.

If you share the passion for the SETI program and have seen Contact that sound will give you chills. Every single time I hear that sound my chemistry goes wacky. It's hard to explain, but I dream of being someone much like Ellie (Jodie Foster).

Ann Druyan was co-producer and story contributor for Contact. In addition, Ann served as creative director of the Voyager Interstellar Recording. Perhaps 1,000,000 years from now another intelligent creature in a distant galaxy will stumble across Ann's message and get a glimpse of our curious species. But will we still exist at that point? God I hope.

Chris O'Connor

"For Every Winner, There Are Dozens Of Losers. Odds Are You're One Of Them"

Edited by: Chris OConnor at: 7/22/04 12:46 am

booper54

I've watched that movie so many times I can almost recite the entire thing! That's my favorite movie as well. I go to the IMDB Contact Forums a lot too.

That first scene where it zooms out from Earth and you hear all the radio signals we've been transmitting over the years is just amazing. It's remarkably accurate too, since Carl Sagan was the Co-Producer of the film. It's so calming watching it, seeing the billions of stars and galaxies, and all the different shapes and colors. That is probably my favorite part out of any movie I've ever seen. I'm actually reading the book right now too

Edited by: booper54 at: 7/22/04 3:11 am

Chris OConnor

Booper

So Hydrogen times Pi, eh? LOL Interesting thread over on the IMDb boards.
Contact kicks butt. I'm so happy to see someone else appreciate it as much as myself!

Speaking of seeing the billions of stars and galaxies here is something to consider. For every pinpoint of light you see there are probably a handful of planets in orbit around it. Planets are worlds, so there are more worlds than stars.

I just read this in an interview with Ann Druyan:

Kathleen Connell: So, Ann, we have a consensus in the scientific community that exoplanets are real. We're talking about hundreds of billions?

Ann Druyan: We're talking about more planets than stars. We're talking about a galaxy and a universe of planets that far outnumber the stars. That was the great revelation to me of working with Steve on writing the show: to look up at the Milky Way and not only see a galaxy of four hundred billion stars, but to realize that hidden from our view is a galaxy of worlds that outnumber the stars.

We are just a few years away from launching an ultraviolet all-sky survey which could look directly at thousands of stars at once to find not these giant gas planets, but small, Earth-like planets. There's no doubt in my mind that we will.

Incredible thought, huh? I added the red text. She didn't say it in red.

Damn that gives me chills. I wish I could see more stars from where I live, but we have too much light pollution. Booper, you might want to invite some of those Contact fans to visit BookTalk. They'd probably love to participate in the discussion and upcoming chat with Ann.

Chris

"For Every Winner, There Are Dozens Of Losers. Odds Are You're One Of Them"

Edited by: Chris OConnor at: 7/22/04 11:11 pm

booper54

Haha, yes Hydrogen time pi. I was so happy when I figured that out!

Right now I live in a really small town where you can see plenty of stars, but soon I'm going to be moving to the city to go to college

Sometimes I drive up to the mountains to look at stars... it's amazing actually seeing the Milky Way band across the sky, while in some places it's hard to even see 1 star!

That's a great quote. I've never even thought about how there are probably even MORE planets than stars! That's crazy...

By the way, in the credits on imdb.com for Contact it says Ann Druyan was in the movie... But I've looked so hard and could never find her! Also it doesn't say Carl Sagan was in there, but I could've sworn I saw him at the end when Ellie and Palmer are walking down the stairs outside the court, with all the reporters everywhere and he says "Yes, that's her." Maybe Ann Druyan will know when we chat with her

booper54

Not too much activity in this thread...

Here is an interview with Ann Druyan I read a while back. It gives a great insight into how she and Carl Sagan wrote books together, as well as her relationship with him and how she dealt/deals with his death. It's a good interview.

I have one question about it though... it says she had an upcoming film called "Elijah." Did that ever come out?

Chris OConnor

"For Every Winner, There Are Dozens Of Losers. Odds Are You're One Of Them"

Tiarella

Brandon, thanks for that link!


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