Monday, August 13, 2007
Where have all the ideas gone?
As we finish the book for our AP summer reading, I cannot help but wonder, is there anything else to wonder about? I would have liked for people to ask questions, to dig deeper in their understanding, but nobody has posted. Does this mean that we did not read, do not care, or have no questions about science? I hope it is the first, and not the latter. In order to learn we need to ask questions, to validate facts, to question statements. Science should not be history. It seems that all we aver do in public education is to study what someone else has done, not actually think about what we could do. In order for our AP class to be a success this year, we need you to bring ideas and questions to class. If you are looking for the teacher to guide you along and ask all the questions, you are going to have to keep looking.
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8 comments:
First off, I'm going to repost a question that I posted last week, because not many people responded to it, and I'm really curious about what people have to say!:
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I had a question about a statement Bryson made on pages 256 and 257. He says (at the bottom of 256) that you move from the mesosphere to the thermosphere, the temperature increases from -130 degrees F to 2,700 degrees F. He then explains how at sea level, air molecules are so thick that they constantly colliding and therefore exchanging a lot of heat. But then, he seems to contradict what he just said when he says, that "at the height of the thermosphere, at fifty miles or more, the air is so thin that any two molecules will be miles apart and hardly ever come in contact. So although each molecule is very warm, there are few interactions between them and thus little heat transference." Then why, is the thermosphere so HOT? Does the heat of each single molecule make up for the lack of collisions? Anyone have an answer to this question? thanks!
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I also have another, less debateable question: on page 372, Bryson explain how "[cells] will jump to your defense the instant you are threatened. They will unhesistatingly die for you -- billions of them do so daily." So what exactly happens to the cells when they die? Matter is neither created nor destroyed so it has to go somewhere right? Do we excrete it as waste? The particles are so microscopic and yet so complex-- to me it seems that something big has to happen to them. (Sorry for the long post!)
You know in reading Bryson's book I struggled to find an overall theme as he went from science field to another. It's funny in how Wallace talks about new ideas and questions, for my question is what idea is Bryson trying to convince us of in explaining how all these scientific ideas came about. This has been quite a long book, funny that its called a short history of nearly everything, when this novel was anything but short. But after reaching the end I realize that the idea he is trying to bring to our attention was the idea he presented in the very beginning and that is that we tend, as students, just to believe what we are told. Yet we never ask where did they come up with that, if there is more to the lessons we're taught, and even perhaps if they're wrong. This not only occurs in science class either, how do we know the history of those 300 Spartans in history, how did mathematicians come up with those crazy properties of numbers that we practice everyday. Maybe that is why we haven't been asking many questions in these blogs, because that is how we've been programmed these past eleven years, to just take in information. Yet Bryson has been trying to sway us away from that methodology. So if we honestly read we must ask questions, we must present ideas, if not those 700 pages have just become more absorbed info.
As I read through this book I highlighted a lot of passages that I wanted to question. But now that I've read the whole book I think the most striking thing about it was that people tend to question things to the point that they HAVE to have the answers. So my biggest question is how can we be sure when we are right or wrong? I mean, there are so many theories that people can believe for decades that can be shot down later. Or a lot of people believe things we can't really prove, like how many species of human there were. So how much of science is guessing to satisfy a natural desire for information and how much of what we believe is really true?
I don’t know for sure but I'm going to take a stab at Shamita's question. My thought is that Bryson has translated those values from Kelvin. Kelvin as we know is a value that describes the average kinetic energy of molecules. At that high level the molecules aren't interacting with each other that much however they are under a constant siege of particles from the vast spatial surroundings. So while a thermometer may not read 2,700 degrees up there that value could be the translation of the average kinetic energy of those molecules. The particles having been hyper-excited by solar radiation and other extraterrestrial particles would in my mind have an extremely high level of kinetic energy.
Again this is just a guess. I could not even be close, but it is what came to my mind.
Whoops, I forgot to mention why I think Bryson didn't use the kelvin units. I don't think it is exactly the type of thing the normal lay-person would be expected to fully understand.
In an answer to Shamita’s question about the dead cells, I think that we do not notice the cells coming off our bodies because they are so small. I also think that after the dead cells come off our bodies they become dust that eventually disintegrates into the ground. Because matter is neither created or destroyed, the disintegrated dead cells help with the life process of something else.
Ok so I think I have the answer to Shamitas question. What I got from Bryson's explation was that it was extremely hot in the thermosphere. But becuase the thermosphere is the last sphere protecting earth from space. The last 50 miles of the thermosphere is mixing and become space. So there is going to be a drop in temperature and molecular activity because space is extremely cold which means that little molecular activity is going on. You have to remember that each of the spheres are extremely big. So the last 50 is like the last little part of the thermosphere. While the beginning of the thermosphere is the ionsphere. (The ionsphere is about 80 to 550 km above the Earth's surface) Which would explain a lot about why its so warm and molecularly active. I hope that helps.
The chapter “Bang” discussed asteroids, particularly the vast quantity of them. This got me wondering, how likely is it that Earth will ever get hit by one? The text said "We can't forecast rock disturbances on our own surface. Put them adrift in space and what they might do is beyond guessing. Any asteroid out there that has our name on it is very likely to have no other" (193). Now that we have determined roughly how unlikely a hit will be, how likely is Earth to have a run in with an asteroid?
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