Name	Stephen Hawking
Birth name	Stephen William Hawking
Birth date	January 08, 1942
Birth place	Oxford, England, United Kingdom
Residence	United Kingdom
Nationality	British
Fields	Applied mathematicsTheoretical physicsCosmology
Workplaces	Cambridge UniversityCalifornia Institute of TechnologyPerimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics
Alma mater	Oxford UniversityCambridge University
Doctoral advisor	Dennis Sciama
Academic advisors	Robert Berman
Doctoral students	Bruce AllenRaphael BoussoFay DowkerMalcolm PerryBernard CarrGary GibbonsHarvey ReallDon PageTim PrestidgeRaymond LaflammeJulian Luttrell
Known for	Black holesTheoretical cosmologyQuantum gravityHawking radiation
Influences	Dikran TahtaAlbert Einstein
Awards
Spouse	Jane Hawking(m. 1965–1991, divorced)Elaine Mason(m. 1995–2006, divorced)
Signature	Hawkingsig.svg }}

Stephen William Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA (born 8 January 1942) is a British theoretical physicist and cosmologist, whose scientific books and public appearances have made him an academic celebrity. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and in 2009 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States.

Hawking was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge for 30 years, taking up the post in 1979 and retiring on 1 October 2009. He is now Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge. He is also a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and a Distinguished Research Chair at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario. He is known for his contributions to the fields of cosmology and quantum gravity, especially in the context of black holes. He has also achieved success with works of popular science in which he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general; these include the runaway best seller ''A Brief History of Time'', which stayed on the British ''Sunday Times'' best-sellers list for a record-breaking 237 weeks.

Hawking's key scientific works to date have included providing, with Roger Penrose, theorems regarding gravitational singularities in the framework of general relativity, and the theoretical prediction that black holes should emit radiation, which is today known as Hawking radiation (or sometimes as Bekenstein–Hawking radiation).

Hawking has a motor neurone disease that is related to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a condition that has progressed over the years and has left him almost completely paralysed.

Early life

Stephen Hawking was born on 8 January 1942 to Dr. Frank Hawking, a research biologist, and Isobel Hawking. He had two younger sisters, Philippa and Mary, and an adopted brother, Edward. Though Hawking's parents were living in North London, they moved to Oxford while his mother was pregnant with Stephen, desiring a safer location for the birth of their first child. (London was under attack at the time by the Luftwaffe.) According to Hawking, a German V-2 missile struck only a few streets away.

After Hawking was born, the family moved back to London, where his father headed the division of parasitology at the National Institute for Medical Research. In 1950, Hawking and his family moved to St Albans, Hertfordshire, where he attended St Albans High School for Girls from 1950 to 1953. (At that time, boys could attend the Girls' school until the age of ten.) From the age of eleven, he attended St Albans School, where he was a good, but not exceptional, student. When asked later to name a teacher who had inspired him, Hawking named his mathematics teacher Dikran Tahta. He maintains his connection with the school, giving his name to one of the four houses and to an extracurricular science lecture series. He has visited it to deliver one of the lectures and has also granted a lengthy interview to pupils working on the school magazine, ''The Albanian''.

Hawking was always interested in science. Inspired by his mathematics teacher, he originally wanted to study the subject at university. However, Hawking's father wanted him to apply to University College, Oxford, where his father had attended. As University College did not have a mathematics fellow at that time, it would not accept applications from students who wished to read that discipline. Hawking therefore applied to read natural sciences, in which he gained a scholarship. Once at University College, Hawking specialised in physics. His interests during this time were in thermodynamics, relativity, and quantum mechanics. His physics tutor, Robert Berman, later said in ''The New York Times Magazine'':

Hawking was passing, but his unimpressive study habits resulted in a final examination score on the borderline between first and second class honours, making an "oral examination" necessary. Berman said of the oral examination:

After receiving his B.A. degree at Oxford in 1962, he stayed to study astronomy. He decided to leave when he found that studying sunspots, which was all the observatory was equipped for, did not appeal to him and that he was more interested in theory than in observation. He left Oxford for Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he engaged in the study of theoretical astronomy and cosmology.

Career

Almost as soon as he arrived at Cambridge, he started developing symptoms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, known colloquially in the United States as Lou Gehrig's disease), a type of motor neurone disease which would cost him almost all neuromuscular control. During his first two years at Cambridge, he did not distinguish himself, but, after the disease had stabilised and with the help of his doctoral tutor, Dennis William Sciama, he returned to working on his PhD.

Hawking was elected as one of the youngest Fellows of the Royal Society in 1974, was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1982, and became a Companion of Honour in 1989. Hawking is a member of the Board of Sponsors of the ''Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists''.

In 1974, he accepted the Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Scholar visiting professorship at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) to work with his friend, Kip Thorne, who was a faculty member there. He continues to have ties with Caltech, spending a month each year there since 1992.

Hawking's achievements were made despite the increasing paralysis caused by the ALS. By 1974, he was unable to feed himself or get out of bed. His speech became slurred so that he could be understood only by people who knew him well. In 1985, he caught pneumonia and had to have a tracheotomy, which made him unable to speak at all. A Cambridge scientist built a device that enables Hawking to write onto a computer with small movements of his body, and then have a voice synthesiser speak what he has typed.

Research fields

Hawking's principal fields of research are theoretical cosmology and quantum gravity.

In the late 1960s, he and his Cambridge friend and colleague, Roger Penrose, applied a new, complex mathematical model they had created from Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. This led, in 1970, to Hawking proving the first of many singularity theorems; such theorems provide a set of sufficient conditions for the existence of a gravitational singularity in space-time. This work showed that, far from being mathematical curiosities which appear only in special cases, singularities are a fairly generic feature of general relativity.

He supplied a mathematical proof, along with Brandon Carter, Werner Israel and D. Robinson, of John Wheeler's no-hair theorem – namely, that any black hole is fully described by the three properties of mass, angular momentum, and electric charge.

Hawking also suggested upon analysis of gamma ray emissions that after the Big Bang, primordial mini black holes were formed. With Bardeen and Carter, he proposed the four laws of black hole mechanics, drawing an analogy with thermodynamics. In 1974, he calculated that black holes should thermally create and emit subatomic particles, known today as Bekenstein-Hawking radiation, until they exhaust their energy and evaporate.

In collaboration with Jim Hartle, Hawking developed a model in which the universe had no boundary in space-time, replacing the initial singularity of the classical Big Bang models with a region akin to the North Pole: one cannot travel north of the North Pole, as there is no boundary. While originally the no-boundary proposal predicted a closed universe, discussions with Neil Turok led to the realisation that the no-boundary proposal is also consistent with a universe which is not closed.

Along with Thomas Hertog at CERN, in 2006 Hawking proposed a theory of "top-down cosmology," which says that the universe had no unique initial state, and therefore it is inappropriate for physicists to attempt to formulate a theory that predicts the universe's current configuration from one particular initial state. Top-down cosmology posits that in some sense, the present "selects" the past from a superposition of many possible histories. In doing so, the theory suggests a possible resolution of the fine-tuning question: It is inevitable that we find our universe's present physical constants, as the current universe "selects" only those past histories that led to the present conditions. In this way, top-down cosmology provides an anthropic explanation for why we find ourselves in a universe that allows matter and life, without invoking an ensemble of multiple universes.

Hawking's many other scientific investigations have included the study of quantum cosmology, cosmic inflation, helium production in anisotropic Big Bang universes, large N cosmology, the density matrix of the universe, topology and structure of the universe, baby universes, Yang-Mills instantons and the S matrix, anti de Sitter space, quantum entanglement and entropy, the nature of space and time, including the arrow of time, spacetime foam, string theory, supergravity, Euclidean quantum gravity, the gravitational Hamiltonian, Brans-Dicke and Hoyle-Narlikar theories of gravitation, gravitational radiation, and wormholes.

At a George Washington University lecture in honour of NASA's fiftieth anniversary, Hawking theorised on the existence of extraterrestrial life, believing that "primitive life is very common and intelligent life is fairly rare."

Losing an old bet

Hawking was in the news in July 2004 for presenting a new theory about black holes which goes against his own long-held belief about their behaviour, thus losing a bet he made with Kip Thorne and John Preskill of Caltech. Classically, it can be shown that information crossing the event horizon of a black hole is lost to our universe, and that thus all black holes are identical beyond their mass, electrical charge and angular velocity (the "no hair theorem"). The problem with this theorem is that it implies the black hole will emit the same radiation regardless of what goes into it, and as a consequence that if a pure quantum state is thrown into a black hole, an "ordinary" mixed state will be returned. This runs counter to the rules of quantum mechanics and is known as the black hole information paradox.

Human spaceflight

At the fiftieth anniversary of NASA in 2008, Hawking gave a keynote speech on the final frontier exhorting and inspiring the space technology community on why we (the human race) explore space.

At the celebration of his sixty-fifth birthday on 8 January 2007, Hawking announced his plan to take a zero-gravity flight in 2007 to prepare for a sub-orbital spaceflight in 2009 on Virgin Galactic's space service. Billionaire Richard Branson pledged to pay all expenses for the latter, costing an estimated £100,000. Stephen Hawking's zero-gravity flight in a "''Vomit Comet''" of Zero Gravity Corporation, during which he experienced weightlessness eight times, took place on 26 April 2007. He became the first quadriplegic to float in zero-gravity. This was the first time in forty years that he moved freely, without his wheelchair. The fee is normally US$3,750 for 10–15 plunges, but Hawking was not required to pay the fee. A bit of a futurist, Hawking was quoted before the flight saying: }} In an interview with ''The Daily Telegraph'', he suggested that space was the Earth's long term hope. He continued this theme at a 2008 Charlie Rose interview.

Existence and nature of extraterrestrial life

Hawking has indicated that he is almost certain that alien life exists in other parts of the universe and uses a mathematical basis for his assumptions. "To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational. The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like." He believes alien life not only certainly exists on planets but perhaps even in other places, like within stars or even floating in outer space. He also warns that a few of these species might be intelligent and threaten Earth. Contact with such species might be devastating for humanity. "If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans," he said. He advocated that, rather than try to establish contact, humans should try to avoid contact with alien life forms.

Illness

Stephen Hawking is severely disabled by a motor neurone disease known as Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), sometimes known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Hawking's illness is markedly different from typical ALS because if confirmed, Hawking's case would make for the most protracted case ever documented. A survival for more than ten years after diagnosis is uncommon for ALS; the longest documented durations, other than Hawking's, are 32 and 39 years and these cases were termed benign because of the lack of the typical progressive course.

When he was young, he enjoyed riding horses. At Oxford, he coxed a rowing team, which, he stated, helped relieve his immense boredom at the university. Symptoms of the disorder first appeared while he was enrolled at University of Cambridge; he lost his balance and fell down a flight of stairs, hitting his head. Worried that he would lose his genius, he took the Mensa test to verify that his intellectual abilities were intact. The diagnosis of motor neurone disease came when Hawking was 21, shortly before his first marriage, and doctors said he would not survive more than two or three years. Hawking gradually lost the use of his arms, legs, and voice, and as of 2009 has been almost completely paralysed.

During a visit to the research centre CERN in Geneva in 1985, Hawking contracted pneumonia, which in his condition was life-threatening as it further restricted his already limited respiratory capacity. He had an emergency tracheotomy, and as a result lost what remained of his ability to speak. He has since used an electronic voice synthesiser to communicate.

The DECtalk DTC01 voice synthesiser he uses, which has an American English accent, is no longer being produced. Asked why he has still kept it after so many years, Hawking mentioned that he has not heard a voice he likes better and that he identifies with it. Hawking is said to be looking for a replacement since, aside from being obsolete, the synthesiser is both large and fragile by current standards. As of mid 2009, he was said to be using NeoSpeech's VoiceText speech synthesiser.

In Hawking's many media appearances, he appears to speak fluently through his synthesiser, but in reality, it is a tedious drawn-out process. Hawking's setup uses a predictive text entry system, which requires only the first few characters in order to auto-complete the word, but as he is only able to use his cheek for data entry, constructing complete sentences takes time. His speeches are prepared in advance, but having a live conversation with him provides insight as to the complexity and work involved. During a TED Conference talk, it took him seven minutes to answer a question.

He describes himself as lucky, despite his disease. Its slow progression has allowed him time to make influential discoveries and has not hindered him from having, in his own words, "a very attractive family." When his wife, Jane, was asked why she decided to marry a man with a three-year life expectancy, she responded, "Those were the days of atomic gloom and doom, so we all had a rather short life expectancy." On 20 April 2009, Cambridge University released a statement saying that Hawking was "very ill" with a chest infection, and was admitted to Addenbrooke's Hospital. The following day, it was reported that his new condition was "comfortable" and he would make a full recovery from the infection.

As popular science advocate

Hawking has played himself on numerous television shows and has been portrayed in many more. He has played himself on a ''Red Dwarf'' anniversary special, played a hologram of himself on the episode "Descent" of ''Star Trek: The Next Generation'', appeared in a skit on ''Late Night with Conan O'Brien'', and appeared on the Discovery Channel special ''Alien Planet''. He has also played himself in several episodes of ''The Simpsons'' and ''Futurama'', and has had an action figure made of his ''Simpsons'' likeness. In 2008, Hawking was the subject of and featured in the documentary series ''Stephen Hawking, Master of the Universe'' for Channel 4. In September 2008, Hawking presided over the unveiling of the 'Chronophage' (time-eating) Corpus Clock at Corpus Christi College Cambridge. His actual synthesiser voice was used on parts of the Pink Floyd song "Keep Talking" from the 1994 album ''The Division Bell'', as well as on Turbonegro's "Intro: The Party Zone" on their 2005 album ''Party Animals'', Wolfsheim's "Kein Zurück (Oliver Pinelli Mix)".

Recognition

Acclaim

On 19 December 2007, a statue of Hawking by renowned late artist Ian Walters was unveiled at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology, University of Cambridge. In May 2008, the statue of Hawking was unveiled at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Cape Town. The Stephen W. Hawking Science Museum in San Salvador, El Salvador is named in honour of Stephen Hawking, citing his scientific distinction and perseverance in dealing with adversity. Stephen Hawking Building in Cambridge opened on 17 April 2007. The building belongs to Gonville and Caius College and is used as an undergraduate accommodation and conference facility.

Distinctions

Hawking's belief that the lay person should have access to his work led him to write a series of popular science books in addition to his academic work. The first of these, ''A Brief History of Time'', was published on 1 April 1988 by Hawking, his family and friends, and some leading physicists. It surprisingly became a best-seller and was followed by ''The Universe in a Nutshell'' (2001). Both books have remained highly popular all over the world. A collection of essays titled ''Black Holes and Baby Universes'' (1993) was also popular. His book, ''A Briefer History of Time'' (2005), co-written by Leonard Mlodinow, aims to update his earlier works and make them accessible to an even wider audience. In 2007 Hawking and his daughter, Lucy Hawking, published ''George's Secret Key to the Universe'', a children's book focusing on science that has been described as "like ''Harry Potter'', but without the magic." The book includes information on Hawking radiation.

Hawking supports the children's charity SOS Children's Villages UK.

Awards and honours

1975 Eddington Medal

1976 Hughes Medal of the Royal Society

1979 Albert Einstein Medal

1981 Franklin Medal

1982 Order of the British Empire (Commander)

1985 Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society

1986 Member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences

1988 Wolf Prize in Physics

1989 Prince of Asturias Awards in Concord

1989 Companion of Honour

1999 Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize of the American Physical Society

2003 Michelson Morley Award of Case Western Reserve University

2006 Copley Medal of the Royal Society 2008 Fonseca Prize of the University of Santiago de Compostela 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honour in the United States

Personal life

Hawking revealed that he did not see much point in obtaining a doctorate if he were to die soon. Hawking later said that the real turning point was his 1965 marriage to Jane Wilde, a language student. After gaining his PhD at Trinity Hall, he became first a Research Fellow, and later on a Professorial Fellow at Gonville and Caius College. Jane Hawking (née Wilde), Hawking's first wife, cared for him until 1991 when the couple separated, reportedly because of the pressures of fame and his increasing disability. They had three children: Robert, Lucy, and Timothy. Hawking then married his nurse, Elaine Mason (who was previously married to David Mason, the designer of the first version of Hawking's talking computer), in 1995. In October 2006, Hawking filed for divorce from his second wife amid claims by former nurses that she had abused him.

In 1999, Jane Hawking published a memoir, ''Music to Move the Stars'', detailing the marriage and his breakdown; in 2010 she published a revised version, ''Travelling to Infinity, My Life with Stephen''. Hawking's daughter, Lucy, is a novelist. Their oldest son, Robert, emigrated to the United States, married, and has a son. After a period of estrangement, Hawking and his first family were reconciled in 2007.

His view on how to live life is to "seek the greatest value of our action".

Hawking was asked about his IQ in a 2004 newspaper interview, and replied, "I have no idea. People who boast about their I.Q. are losers." Yet when asked "Are you saying you are not a genius?", Hawking replied "I hope I'm near the upper end of the range."

Hawking strongly opposed the US-led Iraq War, calling it "a war crime" and "based on lies". In 2004, he personally attended a demonstration against the war in Trafalgar Square, and participated in a public reading of the names of Iraqi war victims.

Religious views

In his early work, Hawking spoke of "God" in a metaphorical sense, such as in ''A Brief History of Time'': "If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason—for then we should know the mind of God." In the same book he suggested the existence of God was unnecessary to explain the origin of the universe. His 2010 book ''The Grand Design'' and interviews with the ''Telegraph'' and the Channel 4 documentary ''Genius of Britain'', clarify that he does "not believe in a personal God". Hawking writes, "The question is: is the way the universe began chosen by God for reasons we can't understand, or was it determined by a law of science? I believe the second." He adds, "Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing."

His ex-wife, Jane, said during their divorce proceedings that he was an atheist. Hawking has stated that he is "not religious in the normal sense" and he believes that "the universe is governed by the laws of science. The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws." In an interview published in ''The Guardian'' newspaper, Hawking regarded the concept of Heaven as a myth, stating that there is "no heaven or afterlife" and that such a notion was a "fairy story for people afraid of the dark."

Hawking contrasted religion and science in 2010, saying: "There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, [and] science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works."

Selected publications

Technical

''Singularities in Collapsing Stars and Expanding Universes'' with Dennis William Sciama, 1969 Comments on Astrophysics and Space Physics Vol 1 No.1

''The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time'' with George Ellis, 1973, ISBN 0-521-09906-4

''The Nature of Space and Time'' with Roger Penrose, foreword by Michael Atiyah, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1996, ISBN 0-691-05084-8

''The Large, the Small, and the Human Mind'', (with Abner Shimony, Nancy Cartwright, and Roger Penrose), Cambridge University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-521-56330-5 (hardback), ISBN 0-521-65538-2 (paperback), Canto edition: ISBN 0-521-78572-3

''Information Loss in Black Holes'', Cambridge University Press, 2005

''God Created the Integers: The Mathematical Breakthroughs That Changed History'', Running Press, 2005 ISBN 0762419229

Popular

''A Brief History of Time'', (Bantam Press 1988) ISBN 055305340X

''Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays'', (Bantam Books 1993) ISBN 0553374117

''The Universe in a Nutshell'', (Bantam Press 2001) ISBN 055380202X

''On The Shoulders of Giants. The Great Works of Physics and Astronomy'', (Running Press 2002) ISBN 076241698X

''A Briefer History of Time'', coauthored with Leonard Mlodinow, (Bantam Books 2005) ISBN 0553804367

''The Grand Design'', coauthored with Leonard Mlodinow, (Bantam Press 2010) ISBN 0553805371

Children's fiction

These are co-written with his daughter Lucy.

''George's Secret Key to the Universe'', (Random House, 2007) ISBN 9780385612708

''George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt'', (Simon & Schuster, 2009) ISBN 9781416986713

Films and series

''A Brief History of Time'' (1991)

''Stephen Hawking's Universe'' (1997)

''Horizon: The Hawking Paradox'' (2005)

''Masters of Science Fiction'' (2007)

''Stephen Hawking: Master of the Universe'' (2008) ''Into The Universe with Stephen Hawking'' (2010) A list of Hawking's publications through the year 2002 is available on his website.

See also

Basic concepts of quantum mechanics

Many-worlds interpretation, or flexiverse

Susskind–Hawking battle – see Black hole information paradox

References

Further reading

A layman's guide to Stephen Hawking

Ferguson, Kitty (1991). ''Stephen Hawking: Quest For A Theory of Everything''. Franklin Watts. ISBN 0-553-29895-X

Highly influential in the field. A much cited centennial survey.

Pickover, Clifford, ''Archimedes to Hawking: Laws of Science and the Great Minds Behind Them'', Oxford University Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0195336115

External links

Stephen Hawking's web site

Stephen Hawking's page on Academia.edu

The Life of Stephen Hawking – slideshow by ''The First Post''

Video: Stephen Hawking – discussion of two views of the universe

Videos: Stephen Hawking's concept of God, The role of God within the no boundary cosmology and Imaginary time

;Dated

Stephen Hawking says universe not created by God

Public Lectures, including debate with Roger Penrose 1996–2006

''Hawking celebrates own brief history'', 7 January 2002, BBC

"Leaping the Abyss", interview in ''Reason'' by Gregory Benford 2002-04-01

2002-03-24

''Black holes turned "inside out"'', 22 July 2004, BBC

''Return of the time lord'', Interview about "A Brief History of Time", 27 September 2005, The Guardian.

Stephen Hawking touches on God and science – Physicist says Pope John Paul told scientists not to study universe's origins msnbc June 2006

Press Release from the Catholic League on misquote of Pope by Hawking 2006-06-16

BBC interview 2008-12-05

Category:1942 births Category:Academics of the University of Cambridge Category:Adams Prize recipients Category:Albert Einstein Medal recipients Category:Alumni of Trinity Hall, Cambridge Category:Alumni of University College, Oxford Category:Calculating prodigies Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Category:Cosmologists Category:English astronomers Category:English theoretical physicists Category:English science writers Category:Fellows of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge Category:Fellows of the Royal Society Category:People educated at St Albans School, Hertfordshire Category:Honorary Fellows of University College, Oxford Category:Living people Category:Lucasian Professors of Mathematics Category:Members of the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics Category:Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Category:Members of the Order of the Companions of Honour Category:Members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences Category:People from Oxford Category:People from St Albans Category:People with motor neurone disease Category:Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Category:Recipients of the Copley Medal Category:Recipients of the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society Category:Religious skeptics Category:Wolf Prize in Physics laureates Category:20th-century philosophers Category:21st-century philosophers Category:People educated at St Albans High School for Girls

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Name	Charlie Rose
Birthname	Charles Peete Rose, Jr.
Birth date	January 05, 1942
Birth place	Henderson, North Carolina, U.S.
education	Duke University B.A. (1964) Duke University J.D. (1968)
occupation	Talk show hostJournalist
years active	1972–present
credits	''Charlie Rose'', ''60 Minutes II'', ''60 Minutes'', ''CBS News Nightwatch'', ''CBS This Morning''
url	http://www.charlierose.com/ }}

Charles Peete "Charlie" Rose, Jr. (born January 5, 1942) is an American television talk show host and journalist. Since 1991 he has hosted ''Charlie Rose'', an interview show distributed nationally by PBS since 1993. He has also co-anchored ''CBS This Morning'' since January 2012. Charlie, along with Lara Logan, has revamped the CBS classic Person to Person, a news program during which celebrities are interviewed in their homes, originally hosted by the legendary Edward R. Murrow.

Early life

Rose was born in Henderson, North Carolina, the only child of Margaret Frazier and Charles Peete Rose, Sr., tobacco farmers who owned a country store. As a child, Rose lived above his parents' store in Henderson and helped out with the family business from age seven.. Rose admitted in a Fresh Dialogues interview that as a child his insatiable curiosity was constantly getting him in trouble. A high school basketball star, Rose entered Duke University intending to pursue a degree with a pre-med track, but an internship in the office of Democratic North Carolina Senator B. Everett Jordan got him interested in politics. Rose graduated in 1964 with a bachelor's degree in history. At Duke, he was a member of the Kappa Alpha Order fraternity. He earned a Juris Doctor from the Duke University School of Law in 1968. He met his wife, Mary (''née'' King), while attending Duke.

Career

After his wife was hired by the BBC (in New York), Rose handled some assignments for the BBC on a freelance basis. In 1972, while continuing to work at Bankers Trust, he landed a job as a weekend reporter for WPIX-TV. His break came in 1974, after Bill Moyers hired Rose as managing editor for the PBS series ''Bill Moyers' International Report''. In 1975, Moyers named Rose executive producer of ''Bill Moyers Journal''. Rose soon began appearing on camera. "A Conversation with Jimmy Carter," one installment of Moyers's series ''U.S.A.: People and Politics'', won a 1976 Peabody Award. Rose worked at several networks honing his interview skills until KXAS-TV in Dallas-Fort Worth hired him as program manager and gave him the late-night time slot that would become the ''Charlie Rose'' show.

Rose worked for CBS News (1984–1990) as the anchor of ''CBS News Nightwatch'', the network's first late-night news broadcast. The ''Nightwatch'' broadcast of Rose's interview with Charles Manson won an Emmy Award in 1987. In 1990, Rose left CBS to serve as anchor of ''Personalities'', a syndicated program produced by Fox Broadcasting Company, but he got out of his contract after six weeks because of the tabloid-style content of the show. ''Charlie Rose'' premiered on PBS station Thirteen/WNET on September 30, 1991, and has been nationally syndicated since January 1993. In 1994, Rose moved the show to a studio owned by Bloomberg Television, which allowed for improved satellite interviewing.

Rose was a correspondent for ''60 Minutes II'' from its inception in January 1999 until its cancellation in September 2005, and was later named a correspondent on ''60 Minutes''.

Rose was a member of the board of directors of Citadel Broadcasting Corporation from 2003 to 2009. In May 2010, Charlie Rose delivered the commencement address at North Carolina State University.

On November 15, 2011, it was announced that Rose would return to CBS to help anchor ''CBS This Morning'', replacing ''The Early Show'', commencing January 9, 2012, along with co-anchors Erica Hill and Gayle King.

Cameo appearances

Rose has appeared as himself in the 1998 film ''Primary Colors'', in a 2000 episode of ''The Simpsons'' and in the 2008 movie ''Elegy''. He and his show were also used in the Wes Anderson film The Royal Tenenbaums. He also appears as himself in the 2011 George Clooney directed film, ''The Ides of March''.

Accusations of conflict of interest

While hosting the 2002 Coca-Cola Company shareholders' meeting, Rose said "few companies are able to connect as completely with consumers in the way that Coca-Cola is. It is a privilege to be associated with [The Coca-Cola family] ... This is the business of Coca-Cola: being part of a family, being worldwide, doing well and doing good at the same time." Afterward, Coca-Cola agreed to become what Rose called "a leading underwriter" of ''The Charlie Rose Show'', paying "six or possibly seven figures." Even the Charlie Rose mugs used on his PBS show feature a Coca-Cola logo on one side. Although CBS News policy bars correspondents from doing commercials and product endorsements, the ''Washington Post'' reported CBS was "comfortable" with Rose's actions. Rose insists he "would never do a story on ''60 Minutes II'' about anybody who underwrites my PBS show."

Quiet influence

''The New York Times'' reported that Rose encouraged a discussion between the leaders of NBC and Fox, that led eventually to a mutual reduction in ad hominem attacks between Keith Olbermann and Bill O'Reilly on their respective news programs.

Rose has attended several Bilderberg Group conference meetings, including meetings held in the United States in 2008; Spain in 2010; and Switzerland in 2011. These unofficial conferences hold guests from North America and Western Europe, most of whom are political leaders and businessmen. Details of meetings are closed off to the public and strictly invitation-only, and critics speculate the controversial nature of these meetings of highly influential people. Accusations from conspiracy theorists against The Charlie Rose show claim that it has become the US media outlet for Bilderberg.

Personal life

Rose's twelve-year marriage to Mary Rose (née King) ended in divorce in 1980. Mary is the sister-in-law of Morgan Stanley Chairman John J. Mack. Since 1993, his companion has been socialite and city-planning advocate Amanda Burden, a stepdaughter of CBS founder William S. Paley.

On March 29, 2006, after experiencing shortness of breath in Syria, Rose was flown to Paris and underwent surgery for mitral valve repair in the Georges-Pompidou European Hospital. His surgery was performed under the supervision of Alain F. Carpentier, a pioneer of the procedure. Rose returned to the air on June 12, 2006, with Bill Moyers and Yvette Vega (the show's executive producer), to discuss his surgery and recuperation.

In a 2009 Fresh Dialogues interview Rose described his life as "great and glorious." He added, '"I get up every morning with a new adventure. The adventure is fueled by interesting people. I get a chance to control my own destiny. I do something that is immediately either appreciated or not. I get feedback."

Rose owns a farm in Oxford, North Carolina, an apartment overlooking Central Park in New York City, a beach house in Bellport, New York, an apartment in Washington D.C..and an apartment in Paris, France.

References

External links

Charlie Rose Official website of his eponymous show

Charlie Rose official channel on ''YouTube''

Charlie Rose collected news and commentary at the ''Los Angeles Times''

Charlie Rose shows on Hulu

celebritynetworth.com, Celebrity Net Worth, Charlie Rose

Why Business Loves Charlie Rose David A. Kaplan, ''Fortune'', September 28, 2009

Category:American journalists Category:American television talk show hosts Category:New York television reporters Category:CBS News Category:60 Minutes correspondents Category:Duke University alumni Category:New York University alumni Category:People from Henderson, North Carolina Category:1942 births Category:Living people

bg:Чарли Роуз de:Charlie Rose fa:چارلی رز fr:Charlie Rose he:צ'ארלי רוז ro:Charlie Rose ru:Роуз, Чарли sv:Charlie Rose

name	Carl Sagan
birth date	November 09, 1934
birth place	Brooklyn, New York City, U.S.
residence	United States
nationality	American
death date	December 20, 1996
death place	Seattle, Washington, U.S.
death cause	Pneumonia
education	Rahway High School
alma mater	University of Chicago,Cornell University
field	Astronomy, Astrophysics, Cosmology, Astrobiology, Space science, Planetary science
work institutions	Cornell University Harvard University Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory University of California, Berkeley
alma mater	University of Chicago (B.A.), (B.Sc.), (M.Sc.), (Ph.D.)
known for	Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) ''Cosmos: A Personal Voyage'' ''Cosmos'' Voyager Golden Record Pioneer plaque ''Contact'' ''Pale Blue Dot''
prizes	Oersted Medal (1990) NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal (twice) Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction (1978) National Academy of Sciences Public Welfare Medal (1994) }}

Carl Edward Sagan () (November 9, 1934 December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, science popularizer, and science communicator in the space and natural sciences. During his lifetime, he 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 advocated skeptical inquiry and the scientific method. He pioneered exobiology and promoted the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI).

Sagan became world-famous for his popular science books and for the award-winning 1980 television series ''Cosmos: A Personal Voyage'', which he narrated and co-wrote. A book to accompany the program was also published. Sagan also wrote the novel ''Contact'', the basis for the 1997 film of the same name.

Early life

Carl Sagan was born in Brooklyn, New York City, to a Ukrainian Jewish family. His father, Sam Sagan, was an immigrant garment worker from Kamenets-Podolsk, Ukraine; his mother, Rachel Molly Gruber, a housewife. Carl was named in honor of Rachel's biological mother, Chaiya Clara, in Sagan's words, "the mother she never knew." Sagan graduated from Rahway High School in Rahway, New Jersey, in 1951.

He had one sister, Carol, and the family lived in a modest apartment near the Atlantic Ocean, in Bensonhurst, a Brooklyn neighborhood. According to Sagan, they were Reform Jews, the most liberal of the three main Jewish groups. Both Sagan and his sister agree that their father was not especially religious, but that their mother "definitely believed in God, and was active in the temple ... and served only Kosher meat." During the height of the Depression, his father had to accept a job as a theater usher.

According to biographer Keay Davidson, Sagan's "inner war" was a result of his close relations with both his parents, who were in many ways "opposites." Sagan traced his later analytical urges to his mother, a woman who had known "extreme poverty as a child," and had grown up almost homeless in New York City during World War I and the 1920s. She had her own intellectual ambitions as a young woman, but they were blocked by social restrictions, because of her poverty, her being a woman and wife, and her Jewish religion. Davidson notes that she therefore "worshiped her only son, Carl. He would fulfill her unfulfilled dreams."

However, his "sense of wonder" came from his father, who was a "quiet and soft-hearted escapee from the Czar." In his free time, he gave apples to the poor, or helped soothe labor-management tensions within New York's "tumultuous" garment industry. Although he was "awed" by Carl's "brilliance, his boyish chatter about stars and dinosaurs," he took his son's inquisitiveness in stride, as part of his growing up. In his later years as a writer and scientist, Sagan would often draw on his childhood memories to illustrate scientific points, as he did in his book, ''Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors''. Sagan describes his parents' influence on his later thinking:

:''My parents were not scientists. They knew almost nothing about science. But in introducing me simultaneously to skepticism and to wonder, they taught me the two uneasily cohabiting modes of thought that are central to the scientific method.''

1939 World's Fair

Sagan recalls that one of his best experiences was when he was four or five years old, his parents took him to the 1939 New York World's Fair. The exhibits became a turning point in his life. He later recalled the moving map of the "America of Tomorrow" exhibit: "It showed beautiful highways and cloverleaves and little General Motors cars all carrying people to skyscrapers, buildings with lovely spires, flying buttresses — and it looked great!" At other exhibits, he remembered how a flashlight that shined on a photoelectric cell created a cracking sound, and how the sound from a tuning fork became a wave on an oscilloscope. He also witnessed the future media technology that would replace radio: television. Sagan wrote:

:''Plainly, the world held wonders of a kind I had never guessed. How could a tone become a picture and light become a noise?''

He also saw one of the Fair's most publicized events, the burial of a time capsule at Flushing Meadows, which contained mementos of the 1930s to be recovered by Earth's descendants in a future millennium. "The time capsule thrilled Carl," writes Davidson. As an adult, Sagan and his colleagues created similar time capsules, but ones that would be sent out into the galaxy. These were the Pioneer plaque and the ''Voyager Golden Record'' records, all of which were spinoffs of Sagan's memories of the World Fair.

World War II

During World War II, Sagan's family worried about the fate of their European relatives. Sagan, however, was generally unaware of the details of the ongoing war. He writes, "Sure, we had relatives who were caught up in the Holocaust. Hitler was not a popular fellow in our household ... But on the other hand, I was fairly insulated from the horrors of the war." His sister, Carol, said that their mother "above all wanted to protect Carl ... She had an extraordinarily difficult time dealing with World War II and the Holocaust." Sagan's book, ''The Demon-Haunted World'' (1996), included his memories of this conflicted period in his life, where his family dealt with the realities of the war in Europe, but tried to prevent it from undermining his optimistic spirit.

Inquisitiveness about nature

Soon after entering elementary school, he began to express a strong inquisitiveness about nature. Sagan recalled taking his first trips to the public library alone, at the age of five, when his mother got him a library card. He wanted to learn what stars were, since none of his friends or their parents could give him a clear answer: :''I went to the librarian and asked for a book about stars ... And the answer was stunning. It was that the Sun was a star but really close. The stars were suns, but so far away they were just little points of light ... The scale of the universe suddenly opened up to me. It was a kind of religious experience. There was a magnificence to it, a grandeur, a scale which has never left me. Never ever left me.''

About the time he was six or seven, he and a close friend took trips to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. While there, they went to the Hayden Planetarium and walked around the museum's exhibits of space objects, such as meteorites, and displays of dinosaurs and animals in natural settings. Sagan writes about those visits: :''I was transfixed by the dioramas — lifelike representations of animals and their habitats all over the world. Penguins on the dimly lit Antarctic ice; ... a family of gorillas, the male beating his chest, ... an American grizzly bear standing on his hind legs, ten or twelve feet tall, and staring me right in the eye.''

His parents helped nurture his growing interest in science by buying him chemistry sets and reading materials. His interest in space, however, was his primary focus, especially after reading science fiction stories by writers such as Edgar Rice Burroughs, which stirred his imagination about life on other planets, such as Mars. According to biographer Ray Spangenburg, these early years as Sagan tried to understand the mysteries of the planets, became a "driving force in his life, a continual spark to his intellect, and a quest that would never be forgotten."

Education and scientific career

He attended the University of Chicago, where he participated in the Ryerson Astronomical Society, received a bachelor of arts with general and special honors in 1954, a bachelor of science in 1955, and a master of science in physics in 1956 before earning a PhD in astronomy and astrophysics in 1960. During his time as an undergraduate, Sagan worked in the laboratory of the geneticist H. J. Muller. From 1960 to 1962 Sagan was a Miller Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. From 1962 to 1968, he worked at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Sagan lectured and did research at Harvard University until 1968, when he moved to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. He became a full Professor at Cornell in 1971, and he directed the Laboratory for Planetary Studies there. From 1972 to 1981, Sagan was the Associate Director of the Center for Radio Physics and Space Research at Cornell.

Sagan was associated with the American space program from its inception. From the 1950s onward, he worked as an advisor to NASA, where one of his duties included briefing the Apollo astronauts before their flights to the Moon. Sagan contributed to many of the robotic spacecraft missions that explored the solar system, arranging experiments on many of the expeditions. He conceived the idea of adding an unalterable and universal message on spacecraft destined to leave the solar system that could potentially be understood by any extraterrestrial intelligence that might find it. Sagan assembled the first physical message that was sent into space: a gold-anodized plaque, attached to the space probe Pioneer 10, launched in 1972. Pioneer 11, also carrying another copy of the plaque, was launched the following year. He continued to refine his designs; the most elaborate message he helped to develop and assemble was the Voyager Golden Record that was sent out with the Voyager space probes in 1977. Sagan often challenged the decisions to fund the Space Shuttle and Space Station at the expense of further robotic missions.

Sagan taught a course on critical thinking at Cornell University until he died in 1996 from pneumonia, a few months after finding that he was in remission of myelodysplastic syndrome.

Scientific achievements

Sagan's contributions were central to the discovery of the high surface temperatures of the planet Venus. In the early 1960s no one knew for certain the basic conditions of that planet's surface, and Sagan listed the possibilities in a report later depicted for popularization in a Time-Life book, ''Planets''. His own view was that Venus was dry and very hot as opposed to the balmy paradise others had imagined. He had investigated radio emissions from Venus and concluded that there was a surface temperature of . As a visiting scientist to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, he contributed to the first Mariner missions to Venus, working on the design and management of the project. Mariner 2 confirmed his conclusions on the surface conditions of Venus in 1962.

Sagan was among the first to hypothesize that Saturn's moon Titan might possess oceans of liquid compounds on its surface and that Jupiter's moon Europa might possess subsurface oceans of water. This would make Europa potentially habitable for life. Europa's subsurface ocean of water was later indirectly confirmed by the spacecraft Galileo. Sagan also helped solve the mystery of the reddish haze seen on Titan, revealing that it is composed of complex organic molecules constantly raining down onto the moon's surface.

He further contributed insights regarding the atmospheres of Venus and Jupiter as well as seasonal changes on Mars. Sagan established that the atmosphere of Venus is extremely hot and dense with pressures increasing steadily all the way down to the surface. He also perceived global warming as a growing, man-made danger and likened it to the natural development of Venus into a hot, life-hostile planet through a kind of runaway greenhouse effect. Sagan and his Cornell colleague Edwin Ernest Salpeter speculated about life in Jupiter's clouds, given the planet's dense atmospheric composition rich in organic molecules. He studied the observed color variations on Mars' surface and concluded that they were not seasonal or vegetational changes as most believed but shifts in surface dust caused by windstorms.

Sagan is best known, however, for his research on the possibilities of extraterrestrial life, including experimental demonstration of the production of amino acids from basic chemicals by radiation.

He is also the 1994 recipient of the Public Welfare Medal, the highest award of the National Academy of Sciences for "distinguished contributions in the application of science to the public welfare." He was denied membership in the Academy, reportedly because his media activities made him unpopular with many other scientists.

Sagan's ability to convey his ideas allowed many people to better understand the cosmos — simultaneously emphasizing the value and worthiness of the human race, and the relative insignificance of the Earth in comparison to the universe. He delivered the 1977 series of Royal Institution Christmas Lectures in London. He hosted and, with Ann Druyan, co-wrote and co-produced the highly popular thirteen-part PBS television series ''Cosmos: A Personal Voyage'' modeled on Jacob Bronowski's ''The Ascent of Man''.

Sagan was a proponent of the search for extraterrestrial life. He urged the scientific community to listen with radio telescopes for signals from intelligent extraterrestrial life-forms. So persuasive was he that by 1982 he was able to get a petition advocating SETI published in the journal ''Science'' and signed by 70 scientists including seven Nobel Prize winners. This was a tremendous turnaround in the respectability of this controversial field. Sagan also helped Dr. Frank Drake write the Arecibo message, a radio message beamed into space from the Arecibo radio telescope on November 16, 1974, aimed at informing extraterrestrials about Earth.

Sagan was chief technology officer of the professional planetary research journal ''Icarus'' for twelve years. He co-founded the ''Planetary Society'', the largest space-interest group in the world, with over 100,000 members in more than 149 countries, and was a member of the SETI Institute Board of Trustees. Sagan served as Chairman of the Division for Planetary Science of the American Astronomical Society, as President of the Planetology Section of the American Geophysical Union, and as Chairman of the Astronomy Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

At the height of the Cold War, Sagan became involved in public awareness efforts for the effects of nuclear war when a mathematical climate model suggested that a substantial nuclear exchange could upset the delicate balance of life on Earth. He was one of five authors — the "S" of the "TTAPS" report as the research paper came to be known. He eventually co-authored the scientific paper hypothesizing a global nuclear winter following nuclear war. He also co-authored the book ''A Path Where No Man Thought: Nuclear Winter and the End of the Arms Race'', a comprehensive examination of the phenomenon of nuclear winter.

''Cosmos'' covered a wide range of scientific subjects including the origin of life and a perspective of our place in the universe. The series was first broadcast by the Public Broadcasting Service in 1980, winning an Emmy and a Peabody Award. It has been broadcast in more than 60 countries and seen by over 500 million people, making it the most widely watched PBS program in history. In addition, ''Time'' magazine ran a cover story about Sagan soon after the show broadcast, referring to him as "creator, chief writer and host-narrator of the new public television series Cosmos, [and] takes the controls of his fantasy spaceship."

Sagan also wrote books to popularize science, such as ''Cosmos'', which reflected and expanded upon some of the themes of ''A Personal Voyage'', and became the best-selling science book ever published in English; ''The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence'', which won a Pulitzer Prize; and ''Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science''. Sagan also wrote the best-selling science fiction novel ''Contact'' in 1985, based on a film treatment he wrote with his wife in 1979, but he did not live to see the book's 1997 motion picture adaptation, which starred Jodie Foster and won the 1998 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Adaption.

thumb|left|Pale Blue Dot: Earth is a bright pixel when photographed from "Voyager 1" six billion kilometers out (past Pluto). Sagan encouraged NASA to generate this image. He wrote a sequel to ''Cosmos,'' ''Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space'', which was selected as a notable book of 1995 by ''The New York Times''. He appeared on PBS' Charlie Rose program in January 1995. Sagan also wrote an introduction for the bestselling book by Stephen Hawking, ''A Brief History of Time''. Sagan was also known for his popularization of science, his efforts to increase scientific understanding among the general public, and his positions in favor of scientific skepticism and against pseudoscience, such as his debunking of the Betty and Barney Hill abduction. To mark the tenth anniversary of Sagan's passing, David Morrison, a former student of Sagan, recalled "Sagan's immense contributions to planetary research, the public understanding of science, and the skeptical movement" in ''Skeptical Inquirer''.

Sagan hypothesized in January 1991 that enough smoke from the 1991 Kuwaiti oil fires "might get so high as to disrupt agriculture in much of South Asia ..." He later conceded in ''The Demon-Haunted World'' that this prediction did not turn out to be correct: "it ''was'' pitch black at noon and temperatures dropped 4°–6°C over the Persian Gulf, but not much smoke reached stratospheric altitudes and Asia was spared." A 2007 study noted that modern computer models have been applied to the Kuwait oil fires, finding that individual smoke plumes are not able to loft smoke into the stratosphere, but that smoke from fires covering a large area, like some forest fires or the burning of cities that would be expected to follow a nuclear strike, would loft significant amounts of smoke into the stratosphere.

In his later years Sagan advocated the creation of an organized search for near Earth objects that might impact the Earth. When others suggested creating large nuclear bombs that could be used to alter the orbit of a NEO that was predicted to hit the Earth, Sagan proposed the Deflection Dilemma: If we create the ability to deflect an asteroid away from the Earth, then we also create the ability to deflect an asteroid towards the Earth — providing an evil power with a true doomsday bomb.

Billions and billions

From ''Cosmos'' and his frequent appearances on ''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'', Sagan became associated with the catchphrase "billions and billions". Sagan stated that he never actually used the phrase in the ''Cosmos'' series. The closest that he ever came was in the book ''Cosmos'', where he talked of "billions ''upon'' billions": }}

However, his frequent use of the word ''billions'', and distinctive delivery emphasizing the "b" (which he did intentionally, in place of more cumbersome alternatives such as "billions with a 'b'", in order to distinguish the word from "millions" in viewers' minds), made him a favorite target of comic performers, including Johnny Carson, Gary Kroeger, Mike Myers, Bronson Pinchot, Penn Jillette, Harry Shearer, and others. Frank Zappa satirized the line in the song "Be In My Video", noting as well "atomic light". Sagan took this all in good humor, and his final book was entitled ''Billions and Billions'' which opened with a tongue-in-cheek discussion of this catchphrase, observing that Carson himself was an amateur astronomer and that Carson's comic caricature often included real science.

The popular perception of his characterization of large cosmic quantities continued to be a sense of wonderment at the vastness of space and time, as in his phrase "The total number of stars in the Universe is larger than all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the planet Earth." However, this famous saying was widely misunderstood, as he was in fact referring to the world being at a "critical branch point in history" as in the following quote from ''Cosmos: A Personal Voyage'', Episode 8: "Journeys in Space and Time":

"Those worlds in space are as countless as all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the earth. Each of those worlds is as real as ours and every one of them is a succession of incidents, events, occurrences which influence its future. Countless worlds, numberless moments, an immensity of space and time. And our small planet at this moment, here we face a critical branch point in history: what we do with our world, right now, will propagate down through the centuries and powerfully affect the destiny of our descendants. It is well within our power to destroy our civilization and perhaps our species as well."

Sagan units

As a humorous tribute to him, a ''sagan'' has been defined as a unit of measurement equal to at least four billion, since the lower bound of a number conforming to the constraint of ''billions and billions'' must be two billion plus two billion.

Social concerns

Sagan believed that the Drake equation, on substitution of reasonable estimates, suggested that a large number of extraterrestrial civilizations would form, but that the lack of evidence of such civilizations highlighted by the Fermi paradox suggests technological civilizations tend to destroy themselves rather quickly. This stimulated his interest in identifying and publicizing ways that humanity could destroy itself, with the hope of avoiding such a cataclysm and eventually becoming a spacefaring species. Sagan's deep concern regarding the potential destruction of human civilization in a nuclear holocaust was conveyed in a memorable cinematic sequence in the final episode of ''Cosmos'', called "Who Speaks for Earth?" Sagan had already resigned from the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board and voluntarily surrendered his top secret clearance in protest over the Vietnam War. Following his marriage to his third wife (novelist Ann Druyan) in June 1981, Sagan became more politically active — particularly in opposing escalation of the nuclear arms race under President Ronald Reagan.

In March 1983, Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative — a multi-billion dollar project to develop a comprehensive defense against attack by nuclear missiles, which was quickly dubbed the "Star Wars" program. Sagan spoke out against the project, arguing that it was technically impossible to develop a system with the level of perfection required, and far more expensive to build than for an enemy to defeat through decoys and other means — and that its construction would seriously destabilize the nuclear balance between the United States and the Soviet Union, making further progress toward nuclear disarmament impossible.

When Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev declared a unilateral moratorium on the testing of nuclear weapons, which would begin on August 6, 1985 — the 40th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima — the Reagan administration dismissed the dramatic move as nothing more than propaganda, and refused to follow suit. In response, American anti-nuclear and peace activists staged a series of protest actions at the Nevada Test Site, beginning on Easter Sunday in 1986 and continuing through 1987. Hundreds of people were arrested, including Sagan, who was arrested on two separate occasions as he climbed over a chain-link fence at the test site.

Personal life and beliefs

Sagan was married three times — in 1957, to biologist Lynn Margulis, mother of Dorion Sagan and Jeremy Sagan; in 1968, to artist Linda Salzman, mother of Nick Sagan; and in 1981, to author Ann Druyan, mother of Alexandra Rachel (Sasha) Sagan and Samuel Democritus Sagan. His marriage to Druyan continued until his death in 1996.

Isaac Asimov described Sagan as one of only two people he ever met whose intellect surpassed his own. The other, he claimed, was the computer scientist and artificial intelligence expert Marvin Minsky.

Sagan wrote frequently about religion and the relationship between religion and science, expressing his skepticism about the conventional conceptualization of God as a sapient being. For example:

Some people think God is an outsized, light-skinned male with a long white beard, sitting on a throne somewhere up there in the sky, busily tallying the fall of every sparrow. Others — for example Baruch Spinoza and Albert Einstein — considered God to be essentially the sum total of the physical laws which describe the universe. I do not know of any compelling evidence for anthropomorphic patriarchs controlling human destiny from some hidden celestial vantage point, but it would be madness to deny the existence of physical laws.

In another description of his view of God, Sagan emphatically writes:

The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous. But if by God one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying... it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity.

Despite his criticism of religion, Sagan denied that he was an atheist, saying "An atheist has to know a lot more than I know. An atheist is someone who knows there is no god. By some definitions atheism is very stupid." In reply to a question in 1996 about his religious beliefs, Sagan answered, "I'm agnostic." Sagan maintained that the idea of a creator of the universe was difficult to prove or disprove and that the only conceivable scientific discovery that could challenge it would be an infinitely old universe. According to his last wife, Ann Druyan, he was not a believer: }}

In 2006, Ann Druyan edited Sagan's 1985 Glasgow ''Gifford Lectures in Natural Theology'' into a book, ''The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God'', in which he elaborates on his views of divinity in the natural world. Sagan is also widely regarded as a freethinker or skeptic; one of his most famous quotations, in ''Cosmos'', was, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" (called the "Sagan Standard" by some). This was based on a nearly identical statement by fellow founder of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, Marcello Truzzi, "An extraordinary claim requires extraordinary proof." This idea originated with Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749–1827), a French mathematician and astronomer who said, "The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness."

Late in his life, Sagan's books elaborated on his skeptical, naturalistic view of the world. In ''The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark'', he presented tools for testing arguments and detecting fallacious or fraudulent ones, essentially advocating wide use of critical thinking and the scientific method. The compilation ''Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium'', published in 1997 after Sagan's death, contains essays written by Sagan, such as his views on abortion, and his widow Ann Druyan's account of his death as a skeptic, agnostic, and freethinker.

Sagan warned against humans' tendency towards anthropocentrism. He was the faculty adviser for the Cornell Students for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. In the ''Cosmos'' chapter "Blues For a Red Planet", Sagan wrote, "If there is life on Mars, I believe we should do nothing with Mars. Mars then belongs to the Martians, even if the Martians are only microbes."

Sagan was a user and advocate of marijuana. Under the pseudonym "Mr. X", he contributed an essay about smoking cannabis to the 1971 book ''Marihuana Reconsidered''. The essay explained that marijuana use had helped to inspire some of Sagan's works and enhance sensual and intellectual experiences. After Sagan's death, his friend Lester Grinspoon disclosed this information to Sagan's biographer, Keay Davidson. The publishing of the biography, ''Carl Sagan: A Life'', in 1999 brought media attention to this aspect of Sagan's life. Not long after his death, widow Ann Druyan had gone on to preside over the board of directors of NORML, a foundation dedicated to reforming cannabis laws.

In 1994, engineers at Apple Computer code-named the Power Macintosh 7100 "Carl Sagan" in the hope that Apple would make "billions and billions" with the sale of the PowerMac 7100. The name was only used internally, but Sagan was concerned that it would become a product endorsement and sent Apple a cease and desist letter. Apple complied, but engineers retaliated by changing the internal codename to "BHA" for "Butt-Head Astronomer". Sagan then sued Apple for libel, a form of defamation, in federal court. The court granted Apple's motion to dismiss Sagan's claims and opined in dicta that a reader aware of the context would understand Apple was "clearly attempting to retaliate in a humorous and satirical way", and that "It strains reason to conclude that Defendant was attempting to criticize Plaintiff's reputation or competency as an astronomer. One does not seriously attack the expertise of a scientist using the undefined phrase 'butt-head'." Sagan then sued for Apple's original use of his name and likeness, but again lost. Sagan appealed the ruling. In November 1995, an out of court settlement was reached and Apple's office of trademarks and patents released a conciliatory statement that "Apple has always had great respect for Dr. Sagan. It was never Apple's intention to cause Dr. Sagan or his family any embarrassment or concern."

Sagan briefly served as an adviser on Stanley Kubrick's film ''2001: A Space Odyssey''. Sagan proposed that the film would suggest, rather than depict, extraterrestrial superintelligence.

Sagan and UFOs

Sagan had some interest in UFO reports from at least 1964 when he had several conversations on the subject with Jacques Vallee. Though quite skeptical of any extraordinary answer to the UFO question, Sagan thought scientists should study the phenomenon, at least because there was widespread public interest in UFO reports.

Stuart Appelle notes that Sagan "wrote frequently on what he perceived as the logical and empirical fallacies regarding UFOs and the abduction experience. Sagan rejected an extraterrestrial explanation for the phenomenon but felt there were both empirical and pedagogical benefits for examining UFO reports and that the subject was, therefore, a legitimate topic of study."

In 1966, Sagan was a member of the Ad Hoc Committee to Review Project Blue Book, the U.S. Air Force's UFO investigation project. The committee concluded Blue Book had been lacking as a scientific study, and recommended a university-based project to give the UFO phenomenon closer scientific scrutiny. The result was the Condon Committee (1966–1968), led by physicist Edward Condon, and in their final report they formally concluded that UFOs, regardless of what any of them actually were, did not behave in a manner consistent with a threat to national security.

Ron Westrum writes that "The high point of Sagan's treatment of the UFO question was the AAAS's symposium in 1969. A wide range of educated opinions on the subject were offered by participants, including not only proponents such as James McDonald and J. Allen Hynek but also skeptics like astronomers William Hartmann and Donald Menzel. The roster of speakers was balanced, and it is to Sagan's credit that this event was presented in spite of pressure from Edward Condon". With physicist Thornton Page, Sagan edited the lectures and discussions given at the symposium; these were published in 1972 as ''UFOs: A Scientific Debate''. Some of Sagan's many books examine UFOs (as did one episode of ''Cosmos'') and he claimed a religious undercurrent to the phenomenon.

Sagan again revealed his views on interstellar travel in his 1980 ''Cosmos'' series. In one of his last written works, Sagan argued that the chances of extraterrestrial spacecraft visiting Earth are vanishingly small. However, Sagan did think it plausible that Cold War concerns contributed to governments misleading their citizens about UFOs, and that "some UFO reports and analyses, and perhaps voluminous files, have been made inaccessible to the public which pays the bills ... It's time for the files to be declassified and made generally available." He cautioned against jumping to conclusions about suppressed UFO data and stressed that there was no strong evidence that aliens were visiting the Earth either in the past or present.

Death

After a long and difficult fight with myelodysplasia, which included three bone marrow transplants, Sagan died of pneumonia at the age of 62 at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington, on December 20, 1996. He was buried at Lakeview Cemetery in Ithaca, New York.

Posthumous recognition

The 1997 movie ''Contact'', based on Sagan's novel of the same name and finished after his death, ends with the dedication "For Carl".

In 1997, the Sagan Planet Walk was opened in Ithaca New York. It is a walking scale model of the solar system, extending 1.2 km from the center of The Commons in downtown Ithaca, NY, to the Sciencenter, a hands-on museum. The exhibition was created in memory of Carl Sagan, who was an Ithaca resident and Cornell Professor. Professor Sagan had been a founding member of the museum's advisory board.

The landing site of the unmanned Mars Pathfinder spacecraft was renamed the ''Carl Sagan Memorial Station'' on July 5, 1997.

Sagan's son, Nick Sagan, wrote several episodes in the ''Star Trek'' franchise. In an episode of ''Star Trek: Enterprise'' entitled "Terra Prime", a quick shot is shown of the relic rover Sojourner, part of the Mars Pathfinder mission, placed by a historical marker at Carl Sagan Memorial Station on the Martian surface. The marker displays a quote from Sagan: "Whatever the reason you're on Mars, I'm glad you're there, and I wish I was with you." Sagan's student Steve Squyres led the team that landed the Spirit Rover and Opportunity Rover successfully on Mars in 2004.

Asteroid 2709 Sagan is also named in his honor.

On November 9, 2001, on what would have been Sagan's 67th birthday, the NASA Ames Research Center dedicated the site for the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Cosmos. "Carl was an incredible visionary, and now his legacy can be preserved and advanced by a 21st century research and education laboratory committed to enhancing our understanding of life in the universe and furthering the cause of space exploration for all time", said NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin. Ann Druyan was at the Center as it opened its doors on October 22, 2006.

Sagan has at least three awards named in his honor:

The Carl Sagan Memorial Award presented jointly since 1997 by the American Astronomical Society (AAS) and the Planetary Society,

The Carl Sagan Medal for Excellence in Public Communication in Planetary Science presented since 1998 by the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences (AAS/DPS) for outstanding communication by an active planetary scientist to the general public — Carl Sagan was one of the original organizing committee members of the DPS, and

The Carl Sagan Award for Public Understanding of Science presented by the Council of Scientific Society Presidents (CSSP) — Sagan himself was the first recipient of the CSSP award in 1993. In 2006, the Carl Sagan Medal was awarded to astrobiologist and author David Grinspoon, the son of Sagan's friend Lester Grinspoon.

On December 20, 2006, the tenth anniversary of Sagan's death, a blogger, Joel Schlosberg, organized a Carl Sagan "blog-a-thon" to commemorate Sagan's death, and the idea was supported by Nick Sagan. Many members of the blogging community participated.

August 2007 the Independent Investigative Group IIG awarded Sagan posthumously a Lifetime Achievement Award. This honor has also been awarded to Harry Houdini and James Randi.

In 2008, Benn Jordan, also known as "The Flashbulb", released the album ''Pale Blue Dot: A Tribute to Carl Sagan''.

In 2009, clips from Carl Sagan's ''Cosmos'' were used as the basis for ''A Glorious Dawn'', the first video produced for the Symphony of Science, an educational music video production by composer John Boswell. Musician Jack White later released this song as a vinyl single under his record label Third Man Records. Additional clips were used in several followup videos which featured Sagan alongside other noted scientists and proponents of rational thinking, such as Richard Dawkins, Richard Feynman, Brian Greene, Lawrence M. Krauss, Bill Nye, and Neil deGrasse Tyson.

In 2010, the 76th anniversary of Carl Sagan's birth, the second "Carl Sagan Day" was celebrated on November 6.

Awards and honors

Annual Award for Television Excellence — 1981 — The Ohio State University — PBS series ''Cosmos''

Apollo Achievement Award — National Aeronautics and Space Administration

NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal — National Aeronautics and Space Administration (twice)

Emmy — Outstanding Individual Achievement — 1981 — PBS series ''Cosmos''

Emmy — Outstanding Informational Series — 1981 — PBS series ''Cosmos''

Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal — National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Helen Caldicott Leadership Award — Women's Action for Nuclear Disarmament

Hugo Award — 1981 — ''Cosmos''

Humanist of the Year — 1981 — Awarded by the American Humanist Association

In Praise of Reason Award — 1987 — Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal

Isaac Asimov Award — 1994 — Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal

John F. Kennedy Astronautics Award — American Astronautical Society

John W. Campbell Memorial Award — 1974 — ''Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective''

Joseph Priestley Award — "For distinguished contributions to the welfare of mankind"

Klumpke-Roberts Award of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific — 1974

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky Medal — Awarded by the Soviet Cosmonauts Federation

Locus Award 1986 — ''Contact''

Lowell Thomas Award — Explorers Club — 75th Anniversary

Masursky Award — American Astronomical Society

Miller Research Fellowship — Miller Institute (1960–1962)

Oersted Medal — 1990 — American Association of Physics Teachers

Peabody Award — 1980 — PBS series ''Cosmos''

Prix Galbert — The international prize of Astronautics

Public Welfare Medal — 1994 — National Academy of Sciences

Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction — 1978 — ''The Dragons of Eden''

SF Chronicle Award — 1998 — ''Contact''

Named the "99th Greatest American" on the June 5, 2005, ''Greatest American'' show on the Discovery Channel

Publications

''Planets'' (LIFE Science Library), Sagan, Carl, Jonathan Norton Leonard and editors of Life, Time, Inc., 1966

''Intelligent Life in the Universe'', I.S. Shklovskii coauthor, Random House, 1966, ISBN 1-892803-02-X, 509 pgs (note: republished in 1998 by Emerson-Adams Press)

''UFOs: A Scientific Debate'', Thornton Page coauthor, Cornell University Press, 1972, 310 pgs

''Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence''. MIT Press, 1973, 428 pgs

''Mars and the Mind of Man'', Sagan, Carl, et al., Harper & Row, 1973, 143 pgs

''Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective'', Jerome Agel coauthor, Anchor Press, 1973, ISBN 0-521-78303-8, 301 pgs

''Other Worlds''. Bantam Books, 1975

''Murmurs of Earth: The Voyager Interstellar Record'', Sagan, Carl, et al., Random House, ISBN 0-394-41047-5, 1978

''The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence''. Ballantine Books, 1978, ISBN 0-345-34629-7, 288 pgs

''Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science''. Ballantine Books, 1979, ISBN 0-345-33689-5, 416 pgs

''Cosmos''. Random house, 1980. Random House New Edition, May 7, 2002, ISBN 0-375-50832-5, 384 pgs

''The Cold and the Dark: The World after Nuclear War'', Sagan, Carl et al., Sidgwick & Jackson, 1985

''Comet'', Ann Druyan coauthor, Ballantine Books, 1985, ISBN 0-345-41222-2, 496 pgs

''Contact''. Simon and Schuster, 1985; Reissued August 1997 by Doubleday Books, ISBN 1-56865-424-3, 352 pgs

''A Path Where No Man Thought: Nuclear Winter and the End of the Arms Race'', Richard Turco coauthor, Random House, 1990, ISBN 0-394-58307-8, 499 pgs

''Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors: A Search for Who We Are'', Ann Druyan coauthor, Ballantine Books, October 1993, ISBN 0-345-38472-5, 528 pgs

''Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space''. Random House, November 1994, ISBN 0-679-43841-6, 429 pgs

''The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark''. Ballantine Books, March 1996, ISBN 0-345-40946-9, 480 pgs (note: the book was first published and copyrighted in 1995 with an errata slip inserted)

''Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium'', Ann Druyan coauthor, Ballantine Books, June 1997, ISBN 0-345-37918-7, 320 pgs

''The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God'', Carl Sagan (writer) & Ann Druyan (editor), 1985 Gifford lectures, Penguin Press HC, November 2006, ISBN 1-59420-107-2, 304 pgs

References

Further reading

External links

The Carl Sagan Portal

BBC Radio program "Great Lives" on Carl Sagan's life

A Man whose time Has come — Interview with Carl Sagan by Ian Ridpath, New Scientist 1974 July 4

Carl Sagan Prize for Science Popularization

Carl Sagan Medal for Excellence in Public Communication in Planetary Science, presented by the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences (AAS/DPS)

Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe, SETI Institute

Carl Sagan's Life and Legacy as Scientist, Teacher, and Skeptic, Committee for Skeptical Inquiry

Cosmos — Full Episodes and Clips streaming online for free — Hulu, Cosmos online for free

A Tribute to Carl Sagan: Our Place in the Universe, The Skeptics Society

Category:Astronomers Category:Fellows at the University of California, Berkeley Category:American agnostics Category:American anti–nuclear weapons activists Category:American anti–Vietnam War activists Category:American astronomers Category:American humanists Category:American naturalists Category:American nature writers Category:American pacifists Category:American people of Russian-Jewish descent Category:American science fiction writers Category:American science writers Category:American skeptics Category:American UFO writers Category:Astrochemistry Category:Astrophysics Category:Cosmologists Category:Cornell University faculty Category:Deaths from pneumonia Category:Harvard University people Category:Infectious disease deaths in Washington (state) Category:Jewish American scientists Category:Jewish skeptics Category:Jewish agnostics Category:People from Brooklyn Category:Planetary scientists Category:Presenters of the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures Category:Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction winners Category:Rahway High School alumni Category:SETI Category:Interstellar messages Category:Space advocates Category:University of Chicago alumni Category:1934 births Category:1996 deaths Category:Gifford Lecturers Category:National Academy of Sciences laureates Category:The Planetary Society

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name	Larry King
birth name	Lawrence Harvey Zeiger
birth date	November 19, 1933
birth place	Brooklyn, New York City, U.S.
religion	Jewish (1933–1966)Agnostic (1966–present)
occupation	Television/Radio personality
years active	1957–present
spouse	Freda Miller (1952–1953, annulled); Annette Kaye (1961, divorced); Alene Akins (1961–1963; divorced)Mickey Sutphin (1963–1967, divorced); Alene Akins (1967–1972, divorced); Sharon Lepore (1976–1983, divorced); Julie Alexander (1989–1992, divorced); Shawn Southwick (1997–present)}}

Larry King (born November 19, 1933) is an American television and radio host whose work has been recognized with awards including two Peabodys and ten Cable ACE Awards. He began as a local Florida journalist and radio interviewer in the 1950s and 1960s and became prominent as an all-night national radio broadcaster starting in 1978. From 1985-2010, he hosted the nightly interview TV program ''Larry King Live'' on CNN, a network for which he continues to host specials.

Early life

King was born Lawrence Harvey Zeiger in Brooklyn, New York City, to an Austrian immigrant Edward Zeiger, a restaurant owner and defense plant worker, and his wife Jennie Gitlitz, a garment worker, who emigrated from Belarus. King grew up in a religiously observant Jewish home, but in adulthood became an agnostic.

King's father died at 44 of heart disease, and his mother had to go on welfare to support her two sons. His father's death greatly affected King, and he lost interest in school. After graduating from high school, he worked to help support his mother. From an early age, however, he had wanted to go into radio. King is a fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Career

Miami radio and television

A CBS staff announcer, whom King met by chance, told him to go to Florida, a growing media market where openings still existed for inexperienced broadcasters. King rode a bus to Miami. After initial setbacks, King persisted and got his first job in radio. The manager of a small station, WAHR (now WMBM) in Miami Beach, hired him to clean up and perform miscellaneous tasks. When one of their announcers quit, they put King on the air. His first broadcast was on May 1, 1957, when he worked as the disc jockey from 9 a.m. to noon. He also did two afternoon newscasts and a sportscast. He was paid $55 a week. He acquired the name Larry King when the general manager Martial Cemen said that Zeiger was too ethnic and difficult to remember, so Larry chose the surname ''King'', which he got from an ad in ''The Miami Herald'' for King's Wholesale Liquor, minutes before air. He started interviewing on a midmorning show for WIOD, at Pumpernik's Restaurant in Miami Beach. He would interview anyone who walked in. His first interview was with a waiter at the restaurant. Two days later, singer Bobby Darin, in Miami for a concert later that day, walked into Pumpernik's as a result of coming across King's show on his radio; Darin became King's first celebrity interview guest.

His Miami radio show launched him to local stardom. A few years later, in May 1960, he hosted ''Miami Undercover,'' airing Sunday nights at 11:30 p.m. on WPST-TV Channel 10 (now WPLG). On the show, he moderated debates on important issues of the time. King credits his success on local TV to the assistance of another showbiz legend, comedian Jackie Gleason, whose national TV variety show was being filmed in Miami Beach during this period. "That show really took off because Gleason came to Miami," King said in a 1996 interview he gave when inducted into the Broadcasters' Hall of Fame. "He did that show and stayed all night with me. We stayed till five in the morning. He didn't like the set, so we broke into the general manager's office and changed the set. Gleason changed the set, he changed the lighting, and he became like a mentor of mine." Jackie Gleason was instrumental in getting Larry a hard-to-get on air interview with Frank Sinatra during this time.

During this period, WIOD gave King further exposure as a color commentator for the Miami Dolphins of the National Football League, during their 1970 season and most of their 1971 season. However, he was dismissed by both WIOD and television station WTVJ as a late-night radio host and sports commentator as of December 20, 1971, when he was arrested after being accused of grand larceny by a former business partner. Other staffers covered the Dolphins' games into their 24–3 loss to Dallas in Super Bowl VI. King also lost his weekly column at the ''Miami Beach Sun'' newspaper. The charges were dropped on March 10, 1972, and King spent the next several years in reviving his career, including a stint as the color announcer in Louisiana for the Shreveport Steamer of the World Football League in 1974–75 on KWKH. Eventually, King was rehired by WIOD in Miami. For several years during the 1970s in South Florida, he hosted a sports talk-show called "Sports-a-la-King" that featured guests and callers. He is known for voice Doris in Shrek 2, Shrek The Third, and Shrek forever After,

National radio

In 1978, he went national, inheriting the nightly talk show slot on the Mutual Broadcasting System, broadcast coast-to-coast, that had been "Long John" Nebel's until his death, and had been pioneered by Herb Jepko. One reason King got the Mutual job is that he had once been an announcer at WGMA-AM in Hollywood, Florida, which was then owned by C. Edward Little. Little went on to become president of Mutual and was the one who hired King when Nebel died. King's Mutual show developed a devoted audience.

It was broadcast live Monday through Friday from midnight to 5:30 a.m. Eastern Time. King would interview a guest for the first 90 minutes, with callers asking questions that continued the interview for another 90 minutes. At 3 a.m., he would allow callers to discuss any topic they pleased with him, until the end of the program, when he expressed his own political opinions. That segment was called "Open Phone America". Some of the regular callers used the pseudonyms "The Portland Laugher", "The Miami Derelict", "The Todd Cruz Caller", "The Scandal Scooper", "Mr. Radio" and "The Water Is Warm Caller". "Mr. Radio" made over 200 calls to King during Open Phone America. The show was successful, starting with relatively few affiliates and eventually growing to more than 500. It ran until 1994.

For its final year, the show was moved to afternoons, but, because most talk radio stations at the time had an established policy of local origination in the time-slot (3 to 6 p.m. Eastern Time) that Mutual offered the show, a very low percentage of King's overnight affiliates agreed to carry his daytime show and it was unable to generate the same audience size. The afternoon show was eventually given to David Brenner and radio affiliates were given the option of carrying the audio of King's new CNN evening television program. The Westwood One radio simulcast of the CNN show continued until December 31, 2009.

CNN

He started his ''Larry King Live'' CNN show in June 1985, hosting a broad range of guests from controversial figures of UFO conspiracy theories and alleged psychics, to prominent politicians and leading figures in the entertainment industry, often doing their first or only interview on breaking news stories on his show.

Unlike many interviewers, King has a direct, non-confrontational approach. His reputation for asking easy, open-ended questions has made him attractive to important figures who want to state their position while avoiding being challenged on contentious topics. His interview style is characteristically frank, but with occasional bursts of irreverence and humor. His approach attracts some guests who would not otherwise appear. King, who is known for his general lack of pre-interview preparation, once bragged that he never read the books of authors before making an appearance on his program.

In a show dedicated to the surviving Beatles, King asked George Harrison's widow about the song "Something", which was written about George Harrison's first wife. He seemed surprised when she did not know very much about the song.

Throughout his career King has interviewed many of the leading figures of his time. CNN claimed during his final episode that he had performed 60,000 interviews in his career.

King also wrote a regular newspaper column in USA Today for almost 20 years, from shortly after that newspaper's origin in 1982 until September 2001. The column consisted of short "plugs, superlatives and dropped names" but was dropped when the newspaper redesigned its "Life" section. The column was resurrected in blog form in November 2008 and on Twitter in April 2009.

Departure

On June 29, 2010, King announced that after 25 years, he would be stepping down from his nightly job hosting ''Larry King Live''. However, he stated that he would remain with CNN to host occasional specials. The announcement came in the wake of speculation that CNN had approached Piers Morgan, the British television personality and journalist, as King's primetime replacement, speculation confirmed in September.

The final edition of ''Larry King Live'' aired on December 16, 2010. The show concluded with his last thoughts and a thank you to his audience for watching and supporting him over the years.

Other ventures

King was the moderator of the 6th KAZENERGY Eurasian Forum in Astana, Kazakhstan, an annual forum for Kazakhstan's energy sector occurring in October 2011.

Charitable works

As a result of heart attacks, he established the Larry King Cardiac Foundation, an organization to which David Letterman, through his American Foundation for Courtesy and Grooming, has also contributed. King gave $1 million to George Washington University's School of Media and Public Affairs for scholarships to students from disadvantaged backgrounds. King serves as a member of the Board of Directors on the Police Athletic League of New York City, a nonprofit youth development agency serving inner-city children and teenagers.

On September 3, 2005, following Hurricane Katrina, King aired "How You Can Help", a three-hour special designed to provide a forum and information clearinghouse for viewers to understand and join nationwide and global relief efforts. On January 18, 2010, in the wake the 2010 Haiti earthquake, King aired "Haiti: How You Can Help", a special two-hour edition designed to show viewers how to take action and be a part of the global outreach. Following the Deepwater Horizon explosion, King aired "Disaster in the Gulf: How You Can Help", a special two-hour edition designed to show viewers how to take action in the clean-up efforts on the Gulf Coast.

On August 30, 2010, King served as the host of Chabad's 30th annual "To Life" telethon, in Los Angeles.

Controversial positions

On September 10, 1990, while on ''The Joan Rivers Show,'' Rivers asked King which contestant in the Miss America pageant was "the ugliest". King responded, "Miss Pennsylvania. She was one of the 10 finalists and she did a great ventriloquist bit [...] The dummy was prettier." King was a judge for the September 8, 1990 pageant. King later sent Miss Pennsylvania, Marla Wynne, a dozen long-stemmed roses and a telegram apologizing for saying she was the ugliest contestant in the pageant that year.

In 1997, King was one of 34 celebrities to sign an open letter to then-German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, published as a newspaper advertisement in the ''International Herald Tribune'', which protested the treatment of Scientologists in Germany, comparing it to the Nazis' oppression of Jews in the 1930s. Other signatories included Dustin Hoffman and Goldie Hawn.

Personal life

King has been married eight times, to seven different women. He married high-school sweetheart Freda Miller in 1951 at age 18. The union ended the following year at the behest of their parents, who reportedly had the marriage annulled. King was later briefly married to Annette Kaye who gave birth to his son, Larry Jr., in November 1961. King did not meet Larry Jr. until the son was in his thirties. Larry Jr. and his wife, Shannon, have three children.

In 1961, King married his third wife, Alene Akins, a ''Playboy'' bunny at one of the magazine's eponymous nightclubs. The couple had son Andy in 1962, and divorced the following year. In 1963, King married his fourth wife, Mary Francis "Mickey" Sutphin, who divorced King. He remarried Akins, with whom he had a second child, Chaia, in 1969. The couple divorced a second time in 1972. In 1997, Dove Books published a book written by King and Chaia, ''Daddy Day, Daughter Day''. Aimed at young children, it tells each of their accounts of his divorce from Akins.

On September 25, 1976, King married his fifth wife, math teacher and production assistant Sharon Lepore. The couple divorced in 1983.

King met businesswoman Julie Alexander in summer 1989, and proposed to her on the couple's first date, on August 1, 1989. Alexander became King's sixth wife on October 7, 1989, when the two were married in Washington, D.C. The couple lived in different cities, however, with Alexander in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and King in Washington, D.C., where he worked. The couple separated in 1990 and divorced in 1992. He became engaged to actress Deanna Lund in 1995, after five weeks of dating, but they never married.

He married his seventh wife, Shawn Southwick, born in 1959 as Shawn Oro Engemann, a former singer and TV host, in King's Los Angeles, California, hospital room three days before King underwent heart surgery to clear a clogged blood vessel. The couple have two children: Chance, born March 1999, and Cannon, born May 2000. He is stepfather to Danny Southwick. On King and Southwick's 10th anniversary in September 2007, Southwick boasted she was "the only [wife] to have lasted into the two digits". On April 14, 2010, both Larry and Shawn King filed for divorce. but have since stopped the proceedings, claiming "We love our children, we love each other, we love being a family. That is all that matters to us".

On February 24, 1987, King suffered a major heart attack and then had quintuple-bypass surgery. Since then, King has written two books about living with heart disease. ''Mr. King, You're Having a Heart Attack: How a Heart Attack and Bypass Surgery Changed My Life'' (1989, ISBN 0-440-50039-7) was written with New York's ''Newsday'' science editor B. D. Colen. ''Taking On Heart Disease: Famous Personalities Recall How They Triumphed over the Nation's #1 Killer and How You Can, Too'' (2004, ISBN 1-57954-820-2) features the experience of various celebrities with cardiovascular disease including Peggy Fleming and Regis Philbin.

In July 2009, King appeared on ''The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien'', where he told host O'Brien about his wishes to be cryonically preserved upon death, as he had revealed in his book ''My Remarkable Journey''. In December of 2011, preceding a CNN Special on the topic, the Kings had a special dinner with friends Conan O'Brien, Tyra Banks, Shaquille O'Neal, Seth MacFarlane, Jack Dorsey, Quincy Jones and Russell Brand where his intent to do so was reiterated, among other topics that were discussed.

On February 12, 2010, Larry King revealed that he had undergone surgery five weeks earlier to place stents in his coronary artery to remove plaque from his heart. During the segment on Larry King Live which discussed Bill Clinton's similar procedure, King said he was "feeling great" and had been in hospital for just one day.

Awards

King has received many broadcasting awards. He won the Peabody Award for Excellence in broadcasting for both his radio (1982) and television (1992) shows. He has also won 10 CableACE awards for Best Interviewer and for Best Talk Show Series.

In 1989, King was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame, and in 1996 to the Broadcasters' Hall of Fame. In 2002, the industry magazine ''Talkers'' named King both the fourth-greatest radio talk show host of all time and the top television talk show host of all time.

in June 1998, King received an Honorary Degree from Brooklyn College, City University of New York, for his life achievements.

King was given the Golden Mike Award for Lifetime Achievement in January 2009, by the Radio & Television News Association of Southern California.

King is an honorary member of the Rotary Club of Beverly Hills. He is also a recipient of the President's Award honoring his impact on media from the Los Angeles Press Club in 2006.

King is the first recipient of the Arizona State University Hugh Downs Award for Communication Excellence, presented April 11, 2007, via satellite by Downs himself. Downs sported red suspenders for the event and turned the tables on King by asking "very tough questions" about King's best, worst and most influential interviews during King's 50 years in broadcasting.

References

External links

CNN profile

Larry King Cardiac Foundation - Foundation to fund treatments cardiac patients with little or no insurance

Clark lawsuit

Larry King Live - Transcripts of all interviews since 2000

Larry King interviewed by Gianluca D'Agostino

Larry King Archive of American Television video interview

Category:1933 births Category:Living people Category:American actors Category:American agnostics Category:American Jews Category:American talk radio hosts Category:National Radio Hall of Fame inductees Category:American television talk show hosts Category:American people of Belarusian-Jewish descent Category:American people of Russian-Jewish descent Category:American voice actors Category:Jewish actors Category:Jewish agnostics Category:Miami Dolphins broadcasters Category:National Football League announcers Category:People from Brooklyn Category:World Football League announcers

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name	Deepak Chopra
birth place	New Delhi, India
birth date	October 22, 1946
occupation	physician, public speaker, writer
spouse	Rita Chopra
parents	Dr. (Col) K. L. Chopra, Pushpa Chopra
children	Mallika Chopra and Gotham Chopra
nationality	American (born Indian)
website	deepakchopra.com }}

Deepak Chopra (; born October 22, 1946) is a Indian medical doctor, public speaker, and writer on subjects such as spirituality, Ayurveda and mind-body medicine. Chopra began his career as an endocrinologist and later shifted his focus to alternative medicine. Chopra now runs his own medical center, with a focus on mind-body connections. He is also a lecturer at the Update in Internal Medicine event, sponsored by Harvard Medical School's Department of Continuing Education and the Department of Medicine.

Chopra was a top assistant to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi before launching his own career in the late 1980s by publishing self-help books on New Age spirituality and alternative medicine.

A friend of Michael Jackson for 20 years, Chopra came to widespread public attention in July 2009 when he criticized the "cult of drug-pushing doctors, with their co-dependent relationships with addicted celebrities," saying he hoped Jackson's death, attributed to an overdose of a prescription drug, would be a call to action.

Family history

Chopra was born in New Delhi, India. His father, Krishan Chopra, M.D. (1919–2001) was a prominent Indian cardiologist. He was head of the department of medicine and cardiology at Mool Chand Khairati Ram Hospital, New Delhi, for over 25 years, and a lieutenant in the British army. His paternal grandfather was a sergeant in the British Army, who sought treatment for his heart condition from Ayurveda when it did not improve through medical means.

Chopra's younger brother, Sanjiv, is a Professor of Medicine and Faculty Dean for Continuing Medical Education at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Early life and education

As a young man, Chopra's desire was to become an actor or journalist but he reports that he was inspired by a character in ''Arrowsmith'' by Sinclair Lewis and became a doctor.

Chopra completed his primary education at St. Columba's School in New Delhi and graduated from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). After immigrating to the US in 1968, Chopra began his clinical internship and residency training at Muhlenberg Hospital in Plainfield, New Jersey. He had residency terms at the Lahey Clinic in Burlington, Massachusetts, and at the University of Virginia Hospital.

He earned his license to practice medicine in the state of Massachusetts in 1973 and received a California medical license in 2004. Chopra is board-certified in internal medicine and specialized in endocrinology. He is also a member of the American Medical Association (AMA), a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and a member of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists.

Career

Chopra taught at the Tufts University and Boston University Schools of Medicine. He became Chief of Staff at the New England Memorial Hospital in Stoneham, Massachusetts, later known as Boston Regional Medical Center, before establishing a private practice.

After reading about the Transcendental Meditation technique, Chopra and his wife learned the practice in 1981, and two months later they went on to learn the advanced TM-Sidhi program. Sources also describe a 1981 meeting between Chopra and Ayurvedic physician Brihaspati Dev Triguna in Delhi, India, in which Triguna advised Chopra to learn the TM technique.

In 1985, Chopra met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who invited him to study Ayurveda. In that same year, Chopra left his position at the New England Memorial Hospital and became the founding president of the American Association of Ayurvedic Medicine, and was later named medical director of the Maharishi Ayurveda Health Center for Stress Management and Behavioral Medicine. He was initially the sole stockholder of Maharishi Ayurveda Products International, but divested after three months. He has been called the TM movement's "poster boy" and "its leading Ayurvedic physician". In 1989, the Maharishi awarded him with the title "Dhanvantari (Lord of Immortality), the keeper of perfect health for the world".

In its May 22/29, 1991 issue, the ''Journal of the American Medical Association'' (''JAMA'') published an article coauthored by Chopra: ''Letter from New Delhi: Maharishi Ayur-Veda: Modern Insights Into Ancient Medicine''. ''JAMA'' editors claimed that Chopra and his co-authors had financial interests in "Maharishi Vedic Medicine" products and services. In the August 14, 1991 edition of ''JAMA'', the editors published a financial disclosure correction and followed up on October 2, 1991 with a six-page Medical News and Perspectives exposé. An article discussing this chain of events was authored by Andrew A. Skolnick in the Newsletter of the National Association of Science Writers. A 1992 defamation lawsuit brought against the article's author and the editor of JAMA was dismissed in 1993. Media reports published four years later saying that there had been a monetary settlement of the case were later withdrawn as untrue.

By 1992, Chopra was serving on The National Institutes of Health Ad Hoc Panel on Alternative Medicine. In 1993, Chopra became executive director of the Sharp Institute for Human Potential and Mind–Body Medicine with a $30,000 grant from the Office of Alternative Medicine in the National Institutes to study Ayurvedic medicine. Chopra's institute also maintained affiliation with Sharp Healthcare, in San Diego. That same year Chopra moved with his family to Southern California where he lives with his wife and near his two adult children, Gotham and Mallika.

Chopra left the Transcendental Meditation movement in January 1994. According to his own account, Chopra was accused by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi of attempting to compete with the Maharishi's position as guru. Todd Carroll said Chopra left the TM organization when it “became too stressful” and was a “hindrance to his success”.

In 1995, Chopra was the recipient of the Toastmasters "International Top Five Outstanding Speakers" award. In 1997 Chopra was given the Golden Gavel Award by Toastmasters.

He was presented the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic awarded by the Pio Manzu International Scientific Committee. In the citation committee chairman and former Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev referred to Chopra as ‘one of the most lucid and inspired philosophers of our time’. Esquire Magazine designated him as one of the "top ten motivational speakers in the country".

In 1996, Chopra parted company with the Sharp Institute. That same year, Chopra and neurologist David Simon, M.D., founded the Chopra Center for Wellbeing, which incorporated Ayurveda in its regimen, and was located in La Jolla, California. The University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine and American Medical Association have granted continuing medical education credits for some programs offered to physicians at the Chopra Center. In 2002, Chopra and Simon relocated the Chopra Center to the grounds of La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad, California,continuing to offer mind-body wellness programs, medical consultations, and instruction in meditation, yoga, and Ayurveda.

Chopra and Simon also revived an ancient mantra-based meditation practice, traveling to India to study the origins of this technique, known as Primordial Sound Meditation. This form of meditation is now taught at the Chopra Center and by certified instructors who receive their training through Chopra Center University.

Since 2000 Chopra has sat as an advisor for the National Ayurvedic Medical Association.

In 2005 Chopra was made a Senior Scientist at The Gallup Organization. He currently serves as an Adjunct Professor of Executive Programs at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Chopra has a Sirius XM weekly radio show where he interviews prominent scientists and leaders in the development of human potential on Sirius//XM Stars Radio show Wellness Radio He is also a weekly columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, a regular contributor to the Washington Post's ''On Faith section'' and a prolific contributor to the Huffington Post.

Dr. Chopra is also a monthly contributor for the Times of India Speaking Tree.

In 2006, Chopra launched Virgin Comics LLC with his son Gotham Chopra and entrepreneur Richard Branson. The company's purpose is to "spread peace and awareness through comics and trading cards that display traditional Kabalistic characters and stories". Chopra was awarded the 2006 Ellis Island Medal of Honor by the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations.

He was the recipient in 2009 of the Oceana Award. Also in 2009, Chopra established the Chopra Foundation with a mission to advance the cause of mind/body spiritual healing, education, and research through fundraising for selected projects. In 2010 the Chopra Foundation sponsored the first Sages and Scientists Symposium with prominent scientists philosophers and artists from around the world.

In 2010, Chopra received the Cinequest Life of a Maverick Award for his collaborations with filmmakers Shekhar Kapur and his son, Gotham Chopra. The award goes to "inspirational individuals who touch the world of film while their greater lives exemplify the Maverick spirit".

Chopra is heavily featured in UniGlobe Entertainment's cancer docudrama titled ''1 a Minute'' talking about mind, body, spirit and the mystery of life and death. The documentary is directed by actress Namrata Singh Gujral and also features cancer survivors Olivia Newton-John, Diahann Carroll, Melissa Etheridge, Mumtaz (actress) and Jaclyn Smith.

He received the 2010 Humanitarian Starlite Award "for his global force of human empowerment, well-being and for bringing light to the world." Chopra is the recipient of the 2010 GOI Peace Award.

In September 2010, Chopra published a criticism of Stephen Hawking's book ''The Grand Design''.

In February 2011 the Chopra Foundation sponsored the second annual Sages and Scientists Symposium with eminent physicists, geneticists and social scientists from around the world. .

In conjunction with Menas Kafatos, Ph.D and Rudolph E.Tanzi,Ph.D. Chopra published a paper in the Journal of Cosmology Vol. 14 April-May 2011, titled "How Consciousness Becomes the Physical Universe."

In June 2011 Deepak Chopra wrote an op-ed for the American Medical Association Journal of Ethics titled "Medicine’s Great Divide—The View from the Alternative Side"

In the summer of 2011 Deepak Chopra was ranked #1 influencer of all Indians in the world, both resident and non-resident.

Criticism

According to a 2008 article in ''Time'' magazine, Chopra is “a magnet for criticism” primarily from those involved in science and medicine. Some critics say that Chopra creates a false sense of hope in sick individuals which may keep them away from effective medical care. The ''Time'' article summarized Chopra's reception and popularity thus: "Of all the Asian gurus…, Chopra has arguably been the most successful at erasing apparent differences between East and West by packaging Eastern mystique in credible Western garb. …[H]is quest to construct a pleasing and seamless model of the universe tends to jump to easy conclusions and to spackle over problematic gaps and inconsistencies in the ideas he presents — is obvious to all but his most starry-eyed fans. But grousing about such crimes — as many do — does little to explain his enormous popularity. Chopra is as rich as he is today not because he has been dishonest with anyone, but because his basic message — that love, health and happiness are possible, that mystery is real and that the universe is ultimately a friendly and benevolent place where orthodoxies old and new can meet and make peace with one another — is one that he wants to believe in just as sincerely as his readers do."

Chopra was sued for plagiarism by Robert Sapolsky for using a stress endocrine chart without proper attribution, after the publication of Chopra’s book, ''Ageless Body, Timeless Mind''. An out of court settlement resulted in Chopra attributing material that was researched by Sapolsky. Chopra acknowledges that his thought has been inspired by Jiddu Krishnamurti and others.

In 1996, the ''Weekly Standard'' of London published an article which accused Chopra of “plagiarism and soliciting a prostitute”; however, Chopra sued and the paper withdrew its statements and published an apology.

Chopra has been criticized for his frequent references to the relationship of quantum mechanics to healing processes, a connection that has drawn skepticism from some traditional physicists who say it can be considered as contributing to the general confusion in the popular press regarding quantum measurement, decoherence and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. In 1998, Chopra was awarded the satirical Ig Nobel Prize in physics for "his unique interpretation of quantum physics as it applies to life, liberty, and the pursuit of economic happiness". According to the book, ''Skeptics Dictionary'', Chopra's "mind-body claims get even murkier as he tries to connect Ayurveda with quantum physics.” Chopra also participated in the Channel 4 (UK) documentary ''The Enemies of Reason'', where, when interviewed by scientist Richard Dawkins, he admitted that the term "quantum theory" was being used as a metaphor and that it has little to do with the actual quantum theory in physics.

In August 2005, Chopra wrote a series of articles on the creation-evolution controversy and Intelligent design which were criticized by science writer Michael Shermer, founder of The Skeptics Society.

In March 2010, Chopra and Jean Houston debated Sam Harris and Michael Shermer at Caltech on the question "Does God Have a Future?" Shermer and Harris criticized Chopra's use of scientific terminology to expound unrelated spiritual concepts. Harris has said that Chopra is "the very definition of what we mean by pseudoscience".

In April 2010, Hindu American Foundation co-founder Aseem Shukla, on a ''Washington Post''-sponsored blog on faith and religion, criticized Chopra for suggesting that yoga did not have origins in Hinduism but merely is an Indian spiritual tradition which predated Hinduism. Later on, Chopra tried to explain yoga as rooted in "consciousness alone" which is a universal, non-sectarian eternal wisdom of life expounded by Vedic rishis long before historic Hinduism ever arose. He further accused Aseem Shukla of having a "fundamentalist agenda". Dr. Shukla in a rejoinder titled "Dr. Chopra: Honor thy heritage" termed Deepak Chopra as an exponent of the art of "How to Deconstruct, Repackage and Sell Hindu Philosophy Without Calling it Hindu!" and to the allegation of "fundamentalist" he responded by accusing Dr. Chopra of raising the "bogey of communalism" in frustration to divert the argument.

Message

According to ''Business Week'', one of Chopra's main messages is that by ridding oneself of negative emotions and developing intuition by listening to signals from the body, health can be improved. According to Chopra, slowing down or reversing the aging of the mind through his methods can increase one's lifespan up to the age of 120 years. As a result of his writings and lectures in this area, he is thought by some to be "one of the pre-eminent leaders of the mind-body-spirit movement".

Publications

Chopra has written more than 65 books with 18 New York Times bestsellers. His books have been translated into 35 languages and sold more than 20 million copies worldwide. His book, ''Peace Is the Way'' won the Quill Awards and ''The Book of Secrets: Unlocking the Hidden Dimensions of your Life'' received the Nautilus Award. FINS - Wall Street Journal, mentioned his book, “The Soul of Leadership”, as one of five best business books of 2011 to read for your career. Chopra is represented in the United States by the literary agency, Trident Media Group. His first book, ''Creating Health'', is credited with helping to create initial, international recognition for Chopra.

1987 ''Creating Health'' ISBN 0-395-75515-8

1988 ''Return of the Rishi'' ISBN 0-395-57420-X

1989 ''Quantum Healing: Exploring the Frontiers of Mind/Body Medicine'' ISBN 0-553-34869-8

1991 ''Unconditional Life: Mastering the Forces That Shape Personal Reality''

1991 ''Perfect Health: The Complete Mind/Body Guide'' ISBN 0-517-58421-2

1993 ''Ageless Body, Timeless Mind : The Quantum Alternative to Growing Old'' ISBN 0-517-59257-6

1993 ''Creating Affluence: Wealth Consciousness in the Field of All Possibilities''ISBN 1-880032-42-2

1994 ''The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: A Practical Guide to the Fulfilment of Your Dreams''

1995 ''The Way of the Wizard: Twenty Spiritual Lessons in Creating the Life You Want'' ISBN 0-517-70434-X

1995 ''The Return of Merlin: A Novel'' ISBN 0-449-91074-1

1995 ''Journey into Healing'' ISBN 1-4000-8069-X

1995 ''The Path to Love: Spiritual Strategies for Healing''

1996 ''Perfect Weight'' ISBN 0-517-88458-5

1996 ''Restful Sleep'' ISBN 0-517-88457-7

1996 ''Raid on the Inarticulate'' ISBN 1-882971-16-7

1997 ''The Path to Love: Renewing the Power of Spirit in Your Life'' ISBN 0-517-70622-9

1997 ''The Seven Spiritual Laws for Parents: Guiding Your Children to Success and Fulfillment

1997 ''Perfect Digestion'' ISBN 0-609-80076-0

1998 ''Overcoming Addictions'' ISBN 0-609-80195-3

1998 ''The Love Poems of Rumi''ISBN 0-609-60243-8

1998 ''Healing the Heart'' ISBN 0-609-60035-4

1999 ''Everyday Immortality: A Concise Course in Spiritual Transformation'' ISBN 0-609-60484-8

1999 ''On the Shores of Eternity: Poems from Tagore on Immortality and Beyond'' ISBN 0-609-60564-X

1999 ''A Deepak Chopra Companion'' ISBN 0-609-80454-5

1999 ''Daughters of Joy''ISBN 0-451-20935-4

1999 ''Lords of Light: A Novel'' ISBN 0-312-96892-2

2000 ''The Angel is Near: A Novel'' ISBN 0-312-97024-2

2000 ''How to Know God : The Soul's Journey into the Mystery of Mysteries'' ISBN 0-609-60078-8

2001 ''The Deeper Wound: Recovering the Soul from Fear and Suffering, 100 Days of Healing''

2001 ''Grow Younger, Live Longer: 10 Steps to Reverse Aging'' ISBN 0-609-60079-6

2001 ''The Soul in Love: Classic Poems of Ecstasy and Exaltation'' ISBN 0-609-60648-4

2002 ''Manifesting Good Luck Cards: Growth and Enlightenment

2003 ''Golf for Enlightenment: The Seven Lessons for the Game of Life''

2003 ''The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire: Harnessing the Infinite Power of Coincidence'' ISBN 0-609-60042-7

2003 ''Synchrodestiny: Harnessing the Infinite Power of Coincidence to Create Miracles'' ISBN 1-84413-221-8

2003 ''Manifesting Good Luck: Love and Relationships, 50 Card Deck

2003 ''The Chopra Center Cookbook'' ISBN 0-471-45404-4

2004 ''The Book of Secrets: Unlocking the Hidden Dimensions of Your Life'' ISBN 0-517-70624-5

2004 ''Fire in the Heart: A Spiritual Guide for Teens'' ISBN 0-689-86216-4

2005 ''Peace Is the Way : Bringing War and Violence to an End'' ISBN 0-307-23607-2

2005 ''The Seven Spiritual Laws of Yoga: A Practical Guide to Healing Body, Mind, and Spirit

2005 ''Magical Beginnings Enchanted lives: A Holistic Guide to Pregnancy'' ISBN 0-517-70220-7

2005 ''Teens Ask Deepak'' ISBN 0-689-86218-0

2006 ''Ask The Kabala: Oracle Cards/Kabala Guidebook'' ISBN 978-1-4019-1039-6

2006 ''Power Freedom and Grace: Living from the Source of Lasting Happiness'' ISBN 978-1-878424-81-5

2006 ''Life After Death: The Burden of Proof'' ISBN 0-307-34578-5

2006 ''Kama Sutra: Including the Seven Spiritual Laws of Love'' ISBN 978-1-85227-385-9

2007 ''Buddha: A Story of Enlightenment'' ISBN 978-0-06-087880-1

2007 ''Boundless Energy: The Complete Mind/Body Program for Overcoming Chronic Fatigue'' ISBN 0-609-80075-2

2007 ''Freedom From Addiction'' ISBN 0-7573-0578-4

2008 ''The Third Jesus: The Christ We Cannot Ignore'' ISBN 978-0-307-33831-0

2008 ''Why Is God Laughing? The Path to Joy and Spiritual Optimism''

2008 ''Jesus: A Story of Enlightenment'' ISBN 978-0-06-144873-7

2009 ''Reinventing The Body, Resurrecting The Soul''

2009 ''The Ultimate Happiness Prescription: 7 Keys to Joy and Enlightenment''

2009 ''Chopra Center Herbal Handbook'' ISBN 0-307-45233-6

2010 ''The Shadow Effect'' ISBN 0-06-196265-1

2010 ''Muhammad: A Story of the Last Prophet'' ISBN 978-0-061-78242-8

2010 ''The Soul of Leadership: Unlocking Your Potential for Greatness'' ISBN 978-0-307-40806-8

2011 ''The Seven Spiritual Laws of Superheroes: Harnessing Our Power to Change the World'' with Gotham Chopra ISBN 978-0062059666

2011 ''The War of the Worldviews'' with Leonard Mlodinow ISBN 978-0-30-788688-0 (October 2011 publication date)

Music CDs/audio books

1986 ''Total Health: The Rediscovery of Ayurveda'' ASIN B-000-K06QY-4

1994 ''Journey Into Healing'' ISBN 0-679-44089-5

1994 ''Power Talk!:The Power of the Human Paradox'' with Anthony Robbins ISBN 1-55927-267-8

1996 ''Crescent Moon: Prose Poems of Rabindranath Tagore'' ISBN 1-878424-20-3

1998 ''Synchrodestiny'' ISBN 1-905953-04-6

1997 ''Transformation of Mind'': Deepak Chopra, Christopher Franke, ASIN: B000003KW4

1998 ''A Gift of Love: Love poems inspired by Rumi'' ASIN B-000-GRQX8-A

2000 ''All About God: A Dialogue Between Neale Donald Walsch and Deepak Chopra'' ISBN 1-56170-735-X

2000 ''Wisdom of the Sufi: A Dialogue Between Hidayat Inayat-Kahn and Deepak Chopra'' ISBN 1-56170-734-1

2000 ''The Spiritual Journey : A Dialogue Between Richard Moss, M.D., and Deepak Chopra'' ISBN 1-56170-739-2

2000 ''Spiritual Insights into the Genius of Leonardo da Vinci: A Dialogue Between Michael J. Gelb, M.D., and Deepak Chopra'' ISBN 1-56170-738-4

2000 ''The Art of Everyday Ecstasy: A Dialogue Between Margot Anand and Deepak Chopra '' ISBN 1-56170-737-6

2000 ''The Conscious Universe'' ISBN 1-56170-744-9

2000 ''Pathways to God: A Dialogue Between Joan Borysenko, Ph.D. and Deepak Chopra'' ISBN 1-56170-736-8

2000 ''Unleash Your Potential'' with Marianne Williamson and Sarah Ban Breathnach ISBN 0-671-77180-9

2000 ''The Path to Enlightenment: Insights into Buddhism / A Dialogue Between Robert Thurman, Ph.D., and Deepak Chopra'' ISBN 1-56170-732-5

2001 ''Healing the Planet: A Dialogue Between Marianne Williamson and Deepak Chopra'' ISBN 1-56170-743-0

2001 ''Self-Coaching Secrets for Success'' ISBN 1-56170-827-5

2001 ''Awakening the Goddesses Within: Deepak Chopra, M.D., Presents Agapi Stassinopoulos'' ISBN 1-56170-837-2

2001 ''Tell Me a Story: A Dialogue Between Lisa Suhay and Deepak Chopra'' ISBN 1-56170-874-7

2001 ''Sacred Sexuality: A Dialogue Between Felice Dunas and Deepak Chopra'' ISBN 1-56170-823-2

2001 ''Relationships As a Bridge to Divine Love : A Dialogue Between Barbara De Angelis, Ph.D., and Deepak Chopra'' ISBN 1-56170-742-2

2001 ''Training the Mind, Healing the Body'' ASIN B-000-BGT8K-6

2001 ''Soul of Healing Meditations – A Simple Approach to Growing Younger'' ASIN B-000-05TZS-K

2001 ''The Higher Self'' ISBN 0-7435-0921-8

2001 ''The New Physics of Healing'' ISBN 1-56455-919-X

2001 ''Science And Soul: The Survival of Consciousness After Death, A Dialogue Between Gary Schwartz and Deepak Chopra'' ISBN 1-56170-822-4

2002 ''The Yoga of Love and Devotion'' with Shree Ma ISBN 1-56170-838-0

2002 ''Integrating The Masculine And Feminine In The Spiritual Traditions Of Judaism and Vedanta: A Dialogue Between Rabbi Shmuley Boteach and Deepak Chopra'' ISBN 1-56170-824-0

2002 ''Quantum Physics of Quantum Healing: A Dialogue with Amit Goswami, Ph.D., and Deepak Chopra'' ISBN 1-56170-920-4

2002 ''The Evolving Human: A Dialogue Between Jean Houston, Ph.D., and Deepak Chopa'' ISBN 1-56170-916-6

2002 ''Rituals As a Path to the Divine: A Dialogue Between Stephen Huyler, Ph.D., and Deepak Chopra'' ISBN 1-56170-841-0

2002 ''Healing Your Relationships : A Dialogue Between Kenny and Julia Loggins and Deepak Chopra'' ISBN 1-56170-840-2

2002 ''The Soul and Relationship: A Dialogue Between Shakti Gawain and Deepak Chopra'' ISBN 1-56170-917-4

2002 ''Yoga as a Form of Meditation'' with Yogi Amrit Desai ISBN 1-56170-839-9

2002 ''A Gift of Love II: A Musical Valentine to Tagore'' ASIN B-000-06IZP-E

2003 ''Magical Mind, Magical Body'' ISBN 0-7435-3013-6

2003 ''Journey to the Boundless'' ISBN 0-7435-3016-0

2004 ''Chakra Balancing: Body, Mind, and Soul'' ASIN B-000-667GN-W

2004 ''Sacred Verses, Healing Sounds, Volumes I and II: The Bhagavad Gita, Hymns of the Rig Veda'' ISBN 1-878-42478-5

2004 ''The Ultimate Deepak Chopra Collection'' 20 CDs ASIN B-000-BGV45-I

2004 ''Whispers'' with Eckhart Tolle, Jack Canfield and Don Miguel Ruiz ISBN 1-559-61722-5

2005 ''The Power of Intuition'' ISBN 1-401-90622-2

2005 ''Living Beyond Miracles''with Wayne Dyer ISBN 1-878-42479-3

2005 ''The Cosmic Mind and Submanifest Order of Being'' ISBN 1-401-90450-5

2005 ''Living Without Limits'' ISBN 1-878-42496-3

2005 ''An Ancient Magical Prayer'' ISBN 1-401-90447-5

2006 ''Escaping the Prison of the Intellect'' ISBN 1-878-42456-4

2007 ''Creating Your World the Way You Really Want It To Be'' with Wayne Dyer ISBN 1-602-52748-2

2007 ''Meditations for Healing: A Dialogue Between Dharma Singh Khalsa, M.D. and Deepak Chopra'' ISBN 1-561-70922-0

2008 ''Whispers of Spirit & Happiness'' with Don Miguel Ruiz ISBN 1-559-61945-7

2008 ''The Soul of Healing Affirmations A-Z Guide to Reprogramming the Software of the Soul'' ASIN B-001-2SAT7-S

2008 ''Grow Younger Live Longer'' Dave Stewart and Deepak Chopra ASIN: B0012GMXFQ

2009 ''The Soul Of Healing Meditations'' ASIN B-000-05TZS-K

2011 ''Stress Free with Deepak Chopra (Meditations) ASIN: B004JU157O

2011 ''The Secret of Healing: Meditations for Transformation and Higher Consciousness'' ASIN: B004K35UWG

Videos

1995 ''Seven Spiritual Laws of Success''

1995 ''The Way of the Wizard''

2003 ''God and Buddha - a dialog''

2004 ''Soul of Healing - Body, Mind, and Soul Vol. 1''

2008 ''The Love Guru''

2010 ''1 a Minute''

Other published work

2008 Introduction to Kim Feinberg's ''A Mother's Legacy'' Chopra co-authored ''Ask the Kabala'' with Mike 'Zappy' Zapolin and Alys Yablon, which is a set of 22 cards, each one representing a story or character from the Old Testament and a life lesson based on that story from a Kabalistic perspective. Chopra co-authored a blog in 2009 with Richard Barrett titled Can Values Save the Economy?

Journal of Cosmology Vol. 14 April-May 2011, "How Consciousness Becomes the Physical Universe." with Menas Kafatos, Ph.D and Rudolph E. Tanzi, Ph.D.

Chopra is a co-author of 2011 Consciousness and the Universe: Quantum Physics, Evolution, Brain & Mind along with Roger Penrose, Stuart Hameroff, Henry Stapp

See also

Alternative medicine

Quantum mysticism

Monistic idealism

Spiritual Naturalism

References

Further reading

External links

Official Site

VYou

The Chopra Center for Wellbeing

Category:1946 births Category:Living people Category:Indian emigrants to the United States Category:American writers of Indian descent Category:Indian doctors Category:Indian self-help writers Category:Indian spiritual writers Category:Indian motivational speakers Category:New Age writers Category:People in alternative medicine Category:Recipients of the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic Category:Spiritualists Category:Transcendental Meditation practitioners Category:Ayurvedacharyas Category:Ig Nobel Prize winners Category:American spiritual writers Category:People from New Delhi

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