NEWTON

I was very interested while reading this chapter. Newton's intelligence really surprised me as I kept reading. I think it's a shame that he kept retiring from the subjects that he excelled at and had such a bad attitude that he was considered dislikable as a person, as expressed in the quote, "As an original thinker...he was a stupendous genius whose impact on the world can be seen by everyone; but as a man he was...intuitive mystic for whom science and mathematics were means of reading the riddle of the universe."

I think it wasn't necessary of him to begrudge Leibniz, because he just published his own version of his work. The problem is that he published it first than Newton. If Newton had published it first, like he was urged to, right when he finished his work, he would have succeeded and gotten the glory of discovering calculus.

I don't understand why most geniuses are most genius behave so oddly, including Newton. As I've read through the different chapters, I've kind of seen that the weirder these men are, the bigger their intelligence is, though this stereotype doesn't always have to be true. But why? Why can't they just behave normally? Like I've asked before, do their peculiar habits have anything to do with their intellect? If they had behaved normally, perhaps the people in the time when they lived would have understood them better, and it would have been easier for them to work without criticism from the society of their time. Maybe the people's belief had something to do with their behavior, and influenced upon their work by making them doubt or discontinue it. Which kind of turned into a cycle, because then they acted even more odd, and people criticized them more, and so on.

They were often misunderstood because their insight was far greater than what people back then expected, but it wasn't just that fact, it was also that these men themselves didn't really try to display their knowledge openly to the public so that they could understand, as Newton shows when he refused to publish his work, or when he gave a student the simple reply of "I calculated it," instead of explaining the whole procedure of the problem to him.

The Stone-breakers

"The field attracted many extraordinary figures, not least the aforementioned Murchison...he discovered an interest in rocks and became with rather astounding swiftness a titan of geological thinking." I liked this quote and the man they talked about. Many people think that just because someone is not good in some things, they're not good at anything. This quote shows that people that are not skilled in one particular subject don't have to be stupid; they can actually show surprising knowledge in other things that no one would have imagined.

I thought it was amusing how men were very curious and eager to discover the age of the Earth, coming up with weird and most likely impossible ways to try to calculate it. Edmond Halley's method was amusing and creative, I liked it, but it was obviously impossible to find out the planet's age with that.

As I read further, I also found out the odd behaviors those great men have. For example, Buckland, and Lyell. Does odd behavior have to do with great intelligence and findings? Many people that I have come across with and are very intelligent have some peculiar tendencies and habits, too. Does the intelligence influence these habits, or viceversa?

Chapt. 4- The Measure of Things

"Almost at once...a man named Pierre Godin, ran off with a thirteen-year-old and could not be induced to return." Okay, the last sentence of this paragraph was indeed very weird and...Messed up, but the whole paragraph itself was very radical and intense. I mean, how did everything go wrong out of the simple attempt of studying measurements? How can that study be so unfortunate and difficult every time?

The unfortunes of the men that tried to research these subjects wasn't the only thing about the chapter that interested me, of course. I also liked to hear about Newton's laws, and the explanations of the measures, etc. I liked to see how some researchers took the credit for others' findings, and how others tried and tried to discover something in vain.

Lost in the Cosmos- Chapt. 2 & 3

"There isn't a great deal that goes on...when they have a mind to." I liked this quote because it tells me about astronomers' determination to discover new things about our world. It reminds me not only of their determination, but of human determination and will in general. We humans are very unique beings. Yes, we may be the only ones that are self-destructive (relatively) and destroy our own environment, etc., but we also have very good things, and our determination is one of them. Many say that the ingredients for evolution are mistakes, of course, and knowledge. I don't know if others have added this before, but I'd say determination, and the wish to go past the limits that others have set are also ideal ingredients, because when you set your mind to accomplish something and try hard to do so, no matter how long it takes, you end up completing your goal.

"Tombaugh could see at once that the new planet was...any big news story in that easily excited age." It was very interesting to discover the origins of planet Pluto, and how people kept debating whether one or the other's ideas were preposterous and mere fiction. It's curious how nobody yet knows how big Pluto is, or what it's made of, etc., when the beginning of the chapter just said that astronomers can find anything they're determined to find. Are they not determined to find out more information about Pluto?

"The difficulty is that many of them...are about four billion miles away." What does this mean? What's wrong with Plutinos being too dark, and their albedo, or reflection? I couldn't understand this.

How would a manned mission to Mars tear the crew's DNA to tatters? I mean, I understand it would be by the high-energy solar particles, but how would these particles affect the body, mainly the DNA's structure, so this would happen? I'd really like to know these details.

I'm glad that there's a good probability of other thinking beings existing in the universe. I wonder if we'll ever get to make contact with them, or something.

For chapter two, I read the sentence of how supernova work. "The core of a neutron star...would be a huge amount of energy left over--enough to make the biggest bang in the universe." Could the universe end or be majorly altered because of this? Why can a supernova occur "only once every two or three centuries"? What would happen if the process sped up or delayed?

I like Evans' quote, "There is actually...one of those rare areas where the absence of evidence is evidence." I think it's very powerful, and it applies to many things. 'The absence of evidence is evidence.' It's like the saying "no news is good news."

Lost in the Cosmos- Intro & Chapt. 1

"Whatever else it may be, at the level of chemistry life is curiously mundane...nothing you wouldn't find in any ordinary drugstore" This quote reminded me of the show called FullMetal Alchemist. It's very similar to what the protagonist, Edward Elric, said. I believe that life is much more than just elements. We are not just elements piled together to form a living being. There's a spirit and mind within us that can't be created by men. We are formed in ways that the detached scientific procedures can explain, but there's also the spiritual matter to us, and that is something science has failed to explain with the passion that it should have. Scientists don't actually believe in the spiritual part of life because it's not something that they cannot prove or confirm, just a theory and hypothesis to them. According to scientists, "seeing is believing." Apparently they've managed to see and prove that all the discoveries they've made of this Earth and universe are true to confirm that they are real.

"But there is no space, no darkness...And so, from nothing, our universe begins." What struck me about this chapter was the complexity of our universe's creation. It's so fascinating, I can't begin to fully understand it. As I read the article, I too became interested in how our universe came to be, and was impressed at how quickly and spontanously it happened, both the universe and our very existence. I'm grateful such events happened the way they did.

Also, I think the author is right when he said that science books hide the actual, interesting facts behind all the complex vocabulary and procedures explained in a difficult way that we can't fully comprehend, which is why we end up avoiding science. It makes me wonder why most science books do that. Is that something they actually need to do? Omit the real facts of the universe's creation, and whatnot? Maybe if they did elaborate on the details, thousands of questions would emerge, questions that would eventually lead them to the explanation of how the world is going to end, and, if possibly, the universe, too.

Maybe scientists and the authors of those books know more about what's happening to our planet than they actually let on. Maybe they know exactly how the world is going to end, and when. But of course, this would panick people more than they already are, so they have decided to keep such things a secret, all for the nation's sake. Is that the reason for such secrecy? Is there more to it than just the end of planet Earth, like, say, the end of the universe? Maybe not ALL of the universe, because it's basically infinite, but perhaps there would be alterations that would keep life from ever existing for a really, really long time. Maybe such alterations will lead the universe to reset itself, and start all over. Because, like the author said, all species have to get used to changes in the environment where they live, changes that occur over and over again.

Maybe the universe has grown used to radical changes and will have one eventually, it just isn't telling us. Or maybe it already did, it's the people that discovered this that don't want to tell us the truth.

I don't think we'll ever know for certain, but all those questions arose in my mind as I read the chapter. I wish there was an honest answer for these questions, to know for certain if there's any hope for life (as we know it) once this planet, and everything that we know, is over.