Bryson Chapter #5

Quote- "It was while puzzling over these matters that Hutton had a series of exceptional insights. From looking at his own farmland, he could see that soil was created by the erosion of rocks and that particles of this soil were continually washed away and carried off by streams and rivers and redeposited elsewhere...Above all, what Hutton's theories suggested was that Earth processes required huge amounts of time, far more than anyone had ever dreamed. There were enough insights here to transform utterly our understanding of the Earth."

Questions- Why wasn't it possible for Hutton to express his ideas and insights clearly? Did he ever ask for help in trying to write what he meant and what he was thinking? Was he proud of the books he wrote? Could he understand what they were saying when he read them out loud? 

Comment- I chose this quote because as I read it, it automatically made me think about environmental science class because we had a whole unit about soil and the different layers of soil, and we also learned about the different kinds of erosion. His observation was very accurate for being back in the 1700's. I also picked this quote because it says how Hutton had enough insights "to transform utterly our understanding of the Earth." This meaning that he had great ideas and insights but he just didn't know how to explain himself in his books. They wouldn't make much sense so therefore no one really paid attention to them. As it said in the chapter, in 1785, one of Hutton's papers was read at a meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh but no one in the audience had an idea of what he was talking about. This was similar with the books he wrote, even "the greatest geologist of the following century and a man who read everything, admitted he couldn't get through it." It is sad how the people at the time couldn't understand what he was trying to tell them. In the chapter it said, "Hutton was by all accounts a man of the keenest insights and liveliest conversation, a delight in company, and without rival when it came to understanding the mysterious slow processes that shaped the Earth. Unfortunately, it was beyond him to set down his notions in a form that anyone could begin to understand."    

Bryson Chapter #4

Quote- "Today, scientists have at their disposal machines so precise they can detect the weight of a single bacterium and so sensitive that readings can be disturbed by someone yawning seventy-five feet away, but they have not significantly improved on Cavendish's measurements of 1791."

Questions- How are scientists today, with so much new technology and machines, not able to improve Cavendish's measurements dating back to 1791? How accurate is Canvendish's estimate? Are scientists today thinking of a better way to more accurately find the Earth's weight? Will we ever know what the exact weight of the Earth is?

Comment- I thought it was really interesting how scientists back then were able to find all of these things even though they didn't have the kinds of machines and technology we have now. For example, as it said in the chapter, "Interestingly, all of this merely confirmed estimates made by Newton 110 years before Cavendish without any experimental evidence at all." It is really amazing how scientists like Newton were able to do very precise estimates, without much experiments to back up their numbers. It seemed as if scientists back then spent most of their lives trying to do a new discovery and would spend many, many years trying to prove old theories. There were lots of scientists traveling to other places of the world trying to prove new things. As said in the chapter, "With the instinct for ordeal that characterized the age, scientists set off for more than a hundred locations around the globe...It was history's first cooperative international scientific venture..." I think it seems as though scientists back then discovered more things than scientists now because scientists now have less things to discover since a lot of things were discovered by scientists back then.

Bryson Chapter #3

Quote- "'There's something satisfying, I think,' Evans said, 'about the ides of light traveling for millions of years through space and just at the right moment as it reaches Earth someone looks at the right bit of sky and sees it. It just seems right that an event of that magnitude should be witnessed.'"

Questions- Why does it say in the chapter that a supernova occurs on average once every 2-3 hundred years but It says that Evans, from 1980-1996, averaged two discoveries a year?
How does a supernova look like? How do they look like to Evans with his sixteen-inch telescope?

Comment- I thought supernovae are really interesting. Like it says in the chapter, "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." We are able to see the Sun, but we are not able to see supernovae, which are a lot bigger than our Sun. I think it is so amazing how we are not able to see up in the sky an event so big and so bright as a supernova. I understand that they don't happen that often, "In a typical galaxy....a supernova will occur on average once every two or three hundred years," but I think it is interesting how we are not able to see it when they do happen. I think this also connects to how, as it said in the chapter, only about 2,000 stars can be seen from any one spot while just with a small two-inch telescope that number rises to 300,000 stars! That is why Evans is able to see what he sees with his sixteen-inch telescope. As it said in the chapter, it is surprising how  "little of the universe is visible to us when we incline our heads to the sky." I think this is kind of disappointing because there are so many amazing things out there in the universe, that we are unable to see without a telescope. But even with people who have a telescope it is not that easy to find a supernova. As it said in the chapter, "Finding a supernova therefore was a little bit like standing on the observation platform of the Empire State Building with a telescope and searching windows around Manhattan in the hope of finding, let us say, someone lighting a twenty-first-birthday cake."