The Shore of the Cosmic Ocean: A Confluence of Humanity and Science

Remembering Dr. Emma Bakes
An exceptional person, Dr. Emma Bakes passed away on February 28, 2011. She accomplished a great deal and touched many people in an unfortunately short time. Her accomplishments span oceans and included the physical sciences, medicine, fashion, martial arts, and parenthood to name just a few. To honor and remember her, the SETI Institute and NASA's Kepler Mission Team invite you to read the following essay she wrote just a few months ago. It is an essay that reflects her life and her legacy...
Donald Mendoza, NASA Ames, and the SETI Institute

The Shore of the Cosmic Ocean:
A Confluence of Humanity and Science

By Emma Bakes, PhD, MD candidate

I was fourteen years old, engrossed in nightly piano practice, when my mother came into the lounge and announced, with a great deal of excitement, that there was a TV program showing that I needed to see. I sighed heavily, in a way only teenagers can, accompanied by the obligatory eye roll, and decided it had better be good, because few things can outrank a Beethoven sonata. That TV program was Cosmos and within minutes, I found myself enthralled by Carl Sagan, his unique vision of the universe and humanity's place within it. Prior to Carl, my view of astronomy had been of a somewhat cold, sterile field inhabited by people who worked on dry subject material outside of anyone's interest, except other scientists interested in equally esoteric and irrelevant material. The magic that Carl Sagan offered, and I use the word magic in its most pure form, "a mysterious quality of enchantment," was that he was able to translate the mundane and transform it into something extraordinary, making it relevant to humanity on both an individual and a global scale. I was hooked, and in actuality, I had fallen in love with his vision, because he brought that limitless cosmos to life and made it accessible to a young and inquiring mind. Exploration and discovery became passions to be indulged every day, even in my mundane, provincial school, as I linked classes I learned to the sparkle of astrophysics.

Life in my hometown of Blyth, England, was relentlessly conformist. Women sported the same bouffant hair style, the same blue eyeliner, the same white "Frankie Say Relax" clothes, and even the non-conformists were actually conformist non-conformists, dressed in their regulation black clothing with "acceptably outlandish" spiked hair and black eyeliner. There wasn't a lot to do in this town for entertainment, bar drink, smoke and have sex and my parents certainly weren't going to indulge any of that. Within this atmosphere, however, I had my own harmless and surreptitious vice. I read every single one of Carl's books over a two year period. I would order them at the local library and as soon as I received a notice to say a book had arrived, I would dash out to the library in a state of immense excitement, and begin reading the book as I walked home. Those books exerted their own magical transformation on my life. While life in Blyth seemed narrow and limited, life in Carl's books was endless, fertile and free, full of adventure and wonder. Whenever there was a clear night sky, I would step outside with my binoculars to look at the stars and try to recognize the different constellations. The universe was so vast and so very beautiful and it was all above me, waiting to be discovered. For me, the night sky was a boundless entity, full of love and beauty. It was the world's greatest adventure. Where would we go next? What would we learn? What could we discover? And how could we grow as a species? The answers were all in the stars. Carl's influence opened up whole worlds of possibilities for me and my perspective had switched from provincial to cosmic.

When life became grinding, tough or toxic, the magic of Carl's ability to pull us out of our ordinary, everyday selves, to acknowledge the daily wonder that is our lives, to provoke us into new realms of thought, has propelled me from one adventure to another. He remains, in my mind, the only astronomer I have met who has been able to combine rational intellect and the heart of our humanity to make us question our place in the universe. Carl's world was always a breathless exploration of extraordinary potential, limitless possibilities and the passionate pursuit of scientific inquiry. Little did I know that by merely watching a few minutes of his Cosmos series, I was dipping my toes into an ocean of knowledge that would pull me away from everything familiar and allow me to become a human being and scientific explorer fulfilled beyond my wildest dreams. I have worked as an astrophysicist for NASA and the SETI Institute, I am a trainee medical doctor at Stanford and I am a mother to a precocious 3-year-old boy that doctors claimed I could never conceive.

Carl's scientific philosophy helped me believe in the infinite possibilities of a vast and swirling universe, that I could do and be absolutely anything, no matter who I was, where I came from or what the obstacles may be. I still believe in that gift, and it may be the greatest gift that one human being can ever give another. However, in the greater scheme of things, Carl inspired a whole generation of young scientists to explore their world, to question the status quo and to seek their place in it, where they could make a truly positive difference. He exemplified the best of what it is to be human and even in the face of his battle with cancer, turned it around to inspire the building of the Carl Sagan Discovery Center at the Children's Hospital at Montefiore, NYC, the Bronx's first pediatric hospital. Not only is no child turned away due to lack of financial resources or health insurance, the hospital itself is equipped with a wealth of educational resources and facilities to inspire these children and cultivate an appreciation for the wonders of science. Carl's cosmic ocean doesn't only lap at the shores of the distant universe, it ferries the poor and the helpless to a place of care, with free access to medical treatment and scientific inspiration, a place he hoped would provide life changing experiences to improve their future. His legacy remains an appreciation of our humanity, our scientific curiosity concerning life on other worlds and our limitless potential to make our own world a better place.

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I am surprise to note that before the full exploration of the universe some physicits claim this a shore of universe from this point--How could it be. No one till now dares to say that 'Universe either suspended,or pivoted,or of hanging, Let us try with comet chasing to more depper side to come into conclussion. It is not time to say anything a rigid one. Work on Like 'Jet Propalsion Lab. One day we could find it. Thanks J.N.Pramanik.<pramanikjn440@gmail.com

THE DAHBU EQUATION
3-8 2011
Dear Albert, Stephen, Neil, Michael and ALL you researchers:
Following the time honored tradition of, our, acclaimed,
Dr. Frank Drake, I humbly submit, the dahbu equation.
{ c e = close encounters} âWE LOVE YOU ALLâ.

ce-2-3-4th (x) 1910 to 2011yr. (-) reverse engineering
1000 modern equipment 0

(-) âliesâ, all governments (x) errors {10%}
100 % hoaxes

(x) E.T. scanning capabilities / pollution sources.
/ nuclear destinations
/ nuclear and weapons stocks.
/ crime and murder.
/ planetary hostage reality.

(x) world wide ufo acceptance = 65%
100%

1. First contact by E.T.âs, alien beings, ufoâs and usoâs
happened tenâs of thousands of years ago.
2. E.T. or ufo, deliberate contact, with US. gov. = impossible.
3. Further ufo or E.T. contacts, affects upon religion = 0.
They will continue to change, alter, revise, amend,
interpret and re-interpret, their own tales and stories.
4. Further contacts, impact, on the world, as a whole = 0.
The world got the memo about ufoâs and E.T.âs, tenâs
of, thousands of years ago.

d. dahbu
www.njba4you.com / 202- 710-3909 / nojump1@gmail.com

I am living in Lagos, Nigeria. Back in the early 90s, Carl Sagan's Cosmos was a Saturday morning 1 hour program on our local tv channel.

How and where can Ii get those Comos DVDs. I will love to have the complete series.

Innocent

By Innocent Nwume (not verified) on 07 Oct 2011 #permalink

I am very saddened to discover Emma has died. I went to school with her and have very fond memories. She was such a wonderful person.

By Diane Butcher (not verified) on 01 Jan 2012 #permalink

Emma and I were colleagues and friends at the University of London in the early 1990s. I am so sorry she has passed away. Emma was a wonderful, lovely, sparkling treasure. She had a good heart, no matter what life threw her way. While it's hard to imagine Emma no longer being with us, I'm sure she'll always be remembered by everyone who knew and admired her. Count me among them.

By Vince Mannings… (not verified) on 16 Feb 2012 #permalink

Emma was my wonderful daughter, one year has almost passed since February 28th 2011.
It has been hard to bear.

By Barbara Ann Steward (not verified) on 21 Feb 2012 #permalink

Carl was (is) one of my heroes too. One of the most beautiful human beings that ever walked the face of the earth. I have all the Cosmos episodes DVR'd and watch one at least once a week...even though I've seen them all at least 100 times.

What a moving tribute. For having been reportedly shown only once or twice in Britain, Cosmos certainly has inspired a number of people.

What did Dr. Bakes die from?

By Sagan Apprecia… (not verified) on 01 Mar 2011 #permalink

such a passion..I myself, being a big fan of Carl Sagan for his compassionate view of universe, can touch this a little & want to be more.

By Rahul Kashyap (not verified) on 01 Mar 2011 #permalink

Ye gods, she was young -- what happened?

The world needs all the minds like hers that it can get. This is just a bloody shame.

By Luna_the_cat (not verified) on 01 Mar 2011 #permalink

Dr. Emma Bakes passed away after a long battle with cancer. She was, indeed, too young.

By Gail @ SETI In… (not verified) on 01 Mar 2011 #permalink

I shared a house on two different occasions with Emma when she was a graduate student. She always followed her dreams regardless of the setbacks. Such a sad occurrence.

God Bless the miracle baby that "doctors said she could never conceive." She proved smarter than her peers and proved them all wrong, and from where she is now she sees new life and new civilizations - all of them, and I don't know if she would be happy or sad that for her, the search is over as she now knows everything there is to know about everything.

Just reading Dr.Emma Bakes essay resurrected in me the same sort
of wonder and thrill of the adolescent spirit of inquiry I too
felt when seeing Dr.Carl Sagan`s Cosmos on T.V. She surely pursued her dreams and achieved them. But here in India Dr.Sagan`s Cosmos series is the standard text for all amateur
astronomers.

By Aubrey Fonseca (not verified) on 06 Mar 2011 #permalink