Bill Bryson Chapter Three

Quote: Supernovae occur when a giant star, one much bigger than our own Sun, collapses and then spectacularly explodes, releasing in an instant the energy of a hundred billion suns, burning for a time brighter than all the stars in its galaxy. “It’s like a trillion hydrogen bombs going off at once,” says Evans. If a supernova explosion happened within five hundred light-years of us, we would be goners, according to Evans—“it would wreck the show,” as he cheerfully puts it. Comment: I think this is such a good way to define what the whole chapter was about and personally to me, I see it as everything being a threat to our humanity. I am also fascinated by the many information scientists have discovered about our planet and not only how it could benefit us the people living in planet Earth, but also how some things could potentially completely vanish us forever. Connection: This really ties into the fact that there is a conspiracy going on about the world ending and such absurd things like these. But I think that it just comes to show that scientists actually know what they are talking about based on their discoveries of these new threats in space and around our own atmosphere. We only have them to trust what our future might hold fir us. Questions: What could scientists discover next? Will there ever be a time where the world ends? Will we have slightest clue if it did?

QCCQ Welcome to the Solar System

Quote " Now the first thing you are likely to realize is that space is extremely well named and rather dismayingly uneventful. Our solar system may be the liveliest thing for trillions of miles, but all the visible stuff in it, the sun, the planets and their moons, the billion or so tumbling rocks of the asteroid belt, comets, and other miscellaneous drifting detritus fills less than a trillionth of the available space." Comment: This quote gave a lot of information stating opinions and facts that were unbelievably real but hard to comprehend when it is taken in just one moment. Reading this was very interesting and particularly informative to the point that I wanted to learn more about what Astronomers have discovered in the past years and how it affects what we think regarding our solar system and the amount of space that we have. It's definitely amazing how much space we have to explore in order to say that we "know" what is out there in space, but for now we may have to settle with only knowing that are 8 planets in our solar system, and who knows maybe there are more to come just like Pluto, which had been discovered just recently. Connection: I have always wondered about space and time, why there is such a mystery to it and why we always think we have it figured out but rather we just find little pieces to the bigger puzzle that keeps getting bigger and bigger. Questions: Hasn't Pluto been said to not be considered a Planet anymore? Will we ever know the accuracy of the space there is in space? Are there really other living things in other planets other than Earth? Why did Lowell get all the credit for the finding of Pluto, if Tombaugh finished his research when Lowell had died, he should have taken some credit right?

QCCQ

Quote: "We have a universe. It is a place of the most wondrous and gratifying possibility, and beautiful, too. And it was all done in about the same time it takes to make a sandwich." Comment: This quote really stood out to me because of the way it explains how everything literally happened without giving to much or too little. The information that was inferred in this quote was made to be very well understood by everyone, giving that it intended a simple message. In my understanding it was clear to me that there are various things that make up the world today, and without any of them nothing would have existed. One thing leads to another and once we realize it, there we have the world that we see everyday, growing and growing. And it really amazes me that it all happened very fast to a point where nobody can define the accuracy of the time period in which the Universe had started in. Connection: My connection to this is personal. Reading this has made me open my mind to many curiosities in life that I would like to know more about. As I was growing up I always wandered where everything came from and how everything was made, but I guess that's everyone. But as time went by I started noticing that there were certain beliefs and facts that people had of the universe. And at the time, I only believed in one certain person that could possibly ever create such a world, and that was God. And as of now I'm almost in between my beliefs and the facts researchers have came across. Question: How do the small atoms know what to form? What guides them? Do people really now why the ocean is salty? Whats the key of the start of the universe?