Bryson Chapter #2

Quote- "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.You also quickly realize that none of the maps you have ever seen of the solar system were remotely drawn to scale."

Questions- How do scientists know this, if the universe is so big for them to know exactly how big it is? How are scientists able to figure out what is even outside of our solar system being that it is just so enormous? What tools allow them to do that? 

Comment- It is hard to think of the universe or even the solar system because it is just so enormous and everything is just so big for us to really imagine how it looks like. Even just Earth, for me, is so big and it is just a little tiny ball when looked at in the solar system. As the author said, "...the solar system is really quite enormous," and it is but our solar system is just a little tiny thing in our galaxy and even tinier in the universe. Being so enormous, like the author said, "...it isn't possible, in any practical terms, to draw the solar system to scale." The planets are just so far apart that it would be impossible to ever draw them to scale. This means that it is almost impossible for us to imagine how our solar system really looks like. 

Bryson Chapter #1

Quote- "Without them there would be no water or air or rocks, no stars and planets, no distant gassy clouds or swirling nebulae or any of the other things that make the universe so usefully material. Atoms are so numerous and necessary that we easily overlook that they needn't actually exist at all." 

Comment- It is weird to think that atoms make up everything they make up us, water, air and the universe but we don't see them and therefore we take them for granted. There are millions and millions of atoms everywhere and all around us. They are able to change shape, size, colors and everything. If we would think about all of the atoms that make up everything on Earth, the planets, stars and just everything it would be an extremely enormous number because atoms are so small we can't see them. There are just so many billions and trillions of atoms that it is hard to imagine when "there were no atoms and no universe for them to float about in." It is also hard to believe that out of nothing came something and that something makes up about everything in the world we live in. 

Connection- Atoms are so small that many people don't even know about them. I remember I learned about atoms in 10th grade in chemistry class but before that I didn't know anything about atoms, I had never even heard about them. Atoms are everywhere and yet we hardly ever hear or talk about them.

Questions- Do atoms ever die? Are atoms "alive"? How did atoms show up if there was once nothing? How long have atoms been around? Is there proof of atoms being around billions of years ago? How would an atom look like? What makes an atom an atom? Do all atoms look alike?