Bill Bryson Chapter Five

Quote: " At least today we can bring some sophisticated dating techniques to the table. For most of the nineteenth century geologists could draw on nothing more than the most hopeful guesswork. The frustrating position then was that although they could place the various rocks and fossils in order by age, they had no idea how long any of those ages were. " Comment: I really like this quote because it has a lot of information that is condensed into one sentence and for me it summarizes the reading which is really interesting and confusing at the same time. So, having found this quote made me see all the important things that were important back when geology was first discovered. Reading about how geology was first discovered was fascinating to me because everything Hutton proved about Earth and how it was made, was really overwhelming and made all the more sense when put into practice back in the time that they were living in. It's just beautiful to see how our way of living and certain practices are changing very quickly and becoming more and more efficient. Connection: The only connection I have with this is the interest in geology because it's a very interesting subject to learn about and see how it has evolved with time. While reading about the many obstacles that Hutton had to overcome to have people believe in what he said about Earth was very inspiring because he never gave up and always kept trying to prove his theories to make sense of everything. Question: Why didn't they publish Hutton's last book?

Bill Bryson Chapter Four

Quote: "Everywhere the dwindling party went it was met with the deepest suspicions from officials who found it difficult to believe that a group of French scientists would travel halfway around the world to measure the world." This quote really stood out to me since the beginning of the chapter because once you read it, it doesn't really make that much sense. I mean, honestly nobody would travel that far just to measure the world. But as I was reading further into the chapter I found out that a lot of these experts wanted to find this out because for a long time this clueless measure was to every geniuses interest, weather it being for the fame or the money, they all wanted to be the first one to discover this worldwide mystery. It was something only mathmeticians and experts in the field knew how to figure out. They had all this background information based on what Einstein believed in how Earth was formed, and it's structure, so they had reason to travel all the way to South America to measure the Earth and everywhere else since the measurements weren't the same in every country according to what Einstein stated. "Once in a great while, a few times in history, a human mind produces an observation so acute and unexpected that people can’t quite decide which is the more amazing—the fact or the thinking of it." And this quote is just fascinating to me since it's truly amazing how back in the days there were so many intelligent people who lived and discovered nearly the impossible. This quote just does a really good job of describing how the feeling of discovering something amazing feels like. Connection: The only connection I have with this chapter are the many questions I have about life and why it works the way it does. I mean, honestly reading this chapter apart from being very engaging it came to me as really deep and made me reflect on the way I see math now. I'm not really good at math because I truly don't understand the meaning behind it all, but having read this has totally changed my mind and made me look at math to be very important and useful in life. The various people mentioned in the chapter were beyond intelligent and changed the way we seem to perceive life on Earth as well as question it, and to me that it more than enough as to value the art of math. Comment: I loved reading this chapter, it has to be the best chapter I've read so far. It caught my attention since I never knew who had discovered the many things we now know about Earth and the way it functions. Questions: Can we read more of these chapters?