Written by: Bill Bryson, A Short History Of Nearly Everything
Introduction
Welcome. And congratulations. I am delighted that you could make it. Getting here wasn't easy, I know. In fact, I suspect it was a little tougher than you realize.
To begin with, for you to be here now trillions of drifting atoms had somehow to assemble in an intricate and curiously obliging manner to create you. It's an arrangement so specialized and particular that it has never been tried before and will only exist this once. For the next many years (we hope) these tiny particles will uncomplainingly engage in all the billions of deft, co-operative efforts necessary to keep you intact and let you experience the supremely agreeable but generally under appreciated state known as existence.
Why atoms take this trouble is a bit of a puzzle. Being you is not a gratifying experience at the atomic level. For all their devoted attention, your atoms don't care about you - indeed, don't even know that you are there. They don't even know that they are there. They are mindless particles after all, and not even themselves alive. (It's a slightly arresting notion that if you were to pick yourself apart with tweezers, one atom at a time, you would produce a mound of fine atomic dust, none of which had ever been alive but all of which had once been you.) Yet somehow for the period of your existence they will answer to a single rigid impulse: to keep you you.
Written by: Bill Bryson, A Short History Of Nearly Everything
Welcome To The Solar System
Our solar system might 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, the 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 was drawn remotely to scale. (...)
Such are the distances, in fact, that it isn't possible, in any practical terms, to draw the solar system to scale. Even if you added lots of fold out pages to your textbooks or used a really long sheet of poster paper, you wouldn't come close. (...)
Even if you shrank down everything so that Jupiter was as small as the full stop at the end of this sentence, and Pluto was no bigger than a molecule, Pluto would still be over 10 metres away. (...)
Now , the other thing you will notice as we speed past Pluto is that we are speeding past Pluto. If you check your intinerary, you will see that this is a trip to the edge of our solar system, and I'm afraid we're not there yet. (...)
We won't get to the solar system's edge until we have passed through the Oort cloud, a vast celestial realm of drifting comets, and we won't reach the Oort cloud for another - I'm so sorry about this - ten thousand years. Far from marking the outer edge of the solar system, as those schoolroom maps so cavalierly imply, Pluto is barely one-fifty-thousandth of the way.
Written by: BB's SHONE
The Mighty Atom
At sea level, at a temperature of 0 degree Celsius, one cubic centimetre of air (that is, a space about the size of a sugar cube) will contain billion billion molecules. And they are in every single cubic centimetre you see around you. Think how many cubic centimetres there are in the world outside your window - how many sugar cubes it would take to fill that view. Then think how many it would take take to build a Universe. Atoms, in short, are very abundant.
the best smiles are the ones you lead to
the best smiles are the ones you lead to
the best smiles are the ones you lead to
Written by:
The funny aspect of all this is, that it doesn't actually matter. Life comes, goes, comes again. The only ambition is the one that we put in. It's us, who make it a competition, a race, a quest, try to apply some meaning or to find explanations for it. And it's us who think that we are the only ones who ponder on the meaning of (our) life...
If we as members of the human race practice meditation, we can transcend our fear, despair, and forgetfulness. Meditation is not an escape. It is the courage to look at reality with mindfulness and concentration. Thich Nhat Hanh
the best smiles are the ones you lead to
If we as members of the human race practice meditation, we can transcend our fear, despair, and forgetfulness. Meditation is not an escape. It is the courage to look at reality with mindfulness and concentration. Thich Nhat Hanh
the best smiles are the ones you lead to
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An existence that is not coined by conditionings of "good and evil", "peace and war", "acceptance and rejection", etc. but one that overcomes all these dualities in definition and leads to a wholesome, content life?
If we as members of the human race practice meditation, we can transcend our fear, despair, and forgetfulness. Meditation is not an escape. It is the courage to look at reality with mindfulness and concentration. Thich Nhat Hanh
Written by: Tanelorn
hey sorry to but in here, back to the topic of Bill Bryson - A Short History Of Nearly Everything, written in 2002/3.
i've reccently started reading this book and its an excellent book, there is so much information in it, that unfortuantley he can't explain some parts of it, because some pages could fill books them selves. the book has sparked a fascination with the sub atomic level physics, for example he explains that nothing can go faster than the speed of light, but two photons seperated for millions or trillions of miles will still be able to affect each other simmultaneously. Equally fascinating is how an electron can not be found in one single place, you can only find where it is going to be, or how the electron is every where and no where within an atom all at once or how you are not currently sitting on a chair, but in fact hovering above it because all the electrons that make up you and the chair are repelling each other because of their negative charge. i want to learn more about this sort of stuff, mainly like how it works. i know thats pretty hard unless i took up a pyhsics course or something, so does any one know any interesting web site links that might help in my search?
Peace.
-Mike
Certified Mad Doctor and HoP High Priest of Nutella
A buckuht n a hooze! -Valura
Written by: Stone
I don’t think we need to see things on a sub atomic level to know how they are. I think it’s more about who we are being as human beings. In many respects, if we know our selves then we already know the thoughts of other people.
the best smiles are the ones you lead to
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