QQC 5

Quotes: "There, in 2 years of rustic solitude--from age 22 to 24--his creative genius burst forth in a flood of discoveries unmatched in the history of human thought: the binomial series for negative and fractional exponents; differential and integral calculus; universal gravitation as the key to the mechanism of the solar system; and the resolution of sunlight into the visual spectrum by means of a prism, with its implications for understanding the colors of the rainbow and the nature of light in general."

"Newton was always an inward and secretive man, and for the most part kept his monumental discoveries to himself."

"'As for the phenomena of colours...I conceive myself to have discovered the surest explanation, but I refrain from publishing books for fear that disputes and controversies may be raised against me by ignoramuses.'"

"In his scientific efforts Newton somewhat resembled a live volcano, with long periods of quiescence punctuated from time to time by massive eruptions of almost superhuman activity."

"One's attention flags; the problem repeatedly slips away and repeatedly has to be dragged back by an effort of will."

Questions: Why wouldn't Newton want to share his ideas, even if they would be fought by "ignoramuses"? What caused newton to be such a secretive and enigmatic man? Was this just a side-effect of his genius? How did Newton hone his genius? When did he first discover his knack for mathematics and science?

Comments: Like most stereotypical geniuses, Newton seems to be very disorganized. His notes were sometimes lost and he even dismissed one of the greatest discoveries he ever made as mere drivel. I don't really understand some of the things he wrote about in his letters, not because the writing is difficult but because the situation doesn't make sense to me.It's crazy that he was appointed the position of professor of a class that the previous professor resigned from just to give Newton the spot. In my eyes newton is the scientific embodiment of a Renaissance man, although he gave off an insane air. Even some of his friends feared for his sanity, something i can't blame them for. All in all, Newton is just a strange individual.

Reading #3: A Short History on Nearly Everything 4

Quote: "Newton was a decidedly odd figure--brilliant beyond measure, but solitary, joyless, prickly to the point of paranoia, famously distracted (upon swinging his feet out of bed in the morning he would reportedly sometimes sit for hours, immobilized by the sudden rush of thoughts to his head), and capable of the most riveting strangeness."

Question: Why would someone be so curious that they would inflict personal harm just for science? What drove people to go to absurd lengths just to figure out Earth's true size? Was there really nothing to do in the 17th century besides spend two years measuring the exact size of Earth?

Comment: It's fascinating to me that people were willing to devote their lives to doing such ludicrous things. It's unfathomable to me in my modern brainwashed view that people were so readily spending their lives on something that seems impossible. Nowadays doing something like this would be ridiculous, especially considering we have technology to do everything for us,

Reading #2: A Short History on Nearly Everything 2-3

Quote: "Now a natural question is why it took so long for anyone to find a moon in our own solar system. The answer is that it is partly a matter of where astronomers point their instruments and partly a matter of what their instruments are designed to detect, and partly it's just Pluto."

Questions: Why do people tend to play up the true "beauty" of our solar system when in reality it's mostly uneventful and bland? How did astronomers create the tools they use to discover that the universe is in fact boring?

Comments: While the cosmos are very interesting to me, it's funny to now learn that the representations of space and our universe that I've been seeing my whole life are just an artist's view of what they look like. It's rather disappointing.

Reading #1: Chapter 1 of "A Short History of Nearly Everything"

Quote: "This is decidedly odd because the atoms that so liberally and congenially flock together to form living things on Earth are exactly the same atoms that decline to do it elsewhere."

Questions: How were scientists able to discover things that are so infinitesimal? What kind of technology could possibly be used to look so deep into the universe that the edge is nearly visible? How much time and energy goes into designing such technology? How could the information discovered using these technologies be used to build newer and better devices to measure even smaller matter that is ever closer to the brink of the universe? Will humans ever be able to fully understand the true nature of our universe?

Comments: The human mind is designed to be curious, but I don't think there is an amount of time under infinity that would be enough to allow us to fully realize what we're dealing with. There is so much space, so much universe and so little time.