Carl Sagan

Carl Edward Sagan (November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer and astrochemist and a highly successful popularizer of astronomy, astrophysics, and other natural sciences. He pioneered exobiology and promoted the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI). He is world-famous for writing popular science books and for co-writing and presenting the award-winning 1980 television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, which has been seen by more than 600 million people in over 60 countries, making it the most widely watched PBS program in history. A book to accompany the program was also published. He also wrote the novel Contact, the basis for the 1997 Robert Zemeckis film of the same name starring Jodie Foster. During his lifetime, Sagan published more than 600 scientific papers and popular articles and was author, co-author, or editor of more than 20 books. In his works, he frequently advocated skeptical inquiry, humanism, and the scientific method.
Sagan's capability to convey his ideas allowed many people to better understand the cosmos. It covered a wide range of scientific subjects including the origin of life and a perspective of our place in the universe.

From Cosmos and his frequent appearances on The Tonight Show, Sagan became associated with the catch phrase "billions and billions." Sagan never actually used the phrase in Cosmos series, however his frequent use of term billions, and distinctive delivery with emphasis on the “b”, made him a favorite meme of performers and comedy routines of Johnny Carson, Mike Myers, Harry Shearer and others. Sagan took this in good humor, and his final book was entitled Billions and Billions and opened with a tongue-in-cheek discussion of this catch phrase. The indefinite and fictitious number Sagan has arisen in popular culture to indicate a count greater than 4 billion.

He was a truly inspirational speaker and the world is a lesser place without him.
Be sure to check out Cosmos Episode 1 for your Cosmos fix!