"Sagan" as a Unit of Measurement
Carl Sagan was an American cosmologist, astronomer, and absolute tireless champion of the sciences in the public sphere. He was the author, co-editor, or editor of almost two dozen science books, and the host the award-winning 1980 television series Cosmos. Sagan was well known for his excitement in talking about science, especially cosmological issues, and would strongly enunciate the M sound in millions and the B sound in billions to emphasize just how big the numbers were and properly differentiate them for the audience.
Between his strong enunciation, a chapter in one of his popular books called “Billions and Billions”, and a Johnny Carson skit parodying Sagan’s love of the billions and billions of stars out there, the public came to associate Sagan with the phrase. In light-hearted tribute to Sagan, fans of his work and his tireless drive to bring science into the public eye, began using his surname, Sagan, as a unit of measurement. A Sagan signifies a quantity over four billion because, at minimum, billions and billions would have to be at least two plus two billion.
Notes:
From the trademark "Billions and Billions." "Billions" is plural, meaning greater than two, so billions and billions at minimum equals four.
Folksonomies: science geek fun sagan
Taxonomies:
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/business and industrial/company/earnings (0.295483)
/science/physics/space and astronomy (0.289858)
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Entities:
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Concepts:
Carl Sagan (0.968428): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc | yago
Johnny Carson (0.750489): website | dbpedia | freebase | opencyc | yago
Ann Druyan (0.578709): dbpedia | freebase | yago
Measurement (0.569941): dbpedia | freebase
Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (0.498628): website | dbpedia | freebase
Units of measurement (0.491067): website | dbpedia | freebase | yago
Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium (0.478863): dbpedia | freebase
Scientific method (0.473461): dbpedia | freebase
Sagans, An Informal Unit Of Measurement, Signify What?