Cosmos: Standing Up in the Milky Way Video Reflection

Link: http://www.cosmosontv.com/watch/183733315515

Question: What is the significance of science education?

I think science education is a big deal, maybe not the biggest but on of the biggest. Behind literature, science is the most important thing to understand when growing up as a kid. It can interest you lots or not at all, but it can help you lots. Although it may not be what you will grow up to do, it can explain lots of things in life and can never hurt o know. At the same time I think it is not nearly important and literature, because writing is used in everything, including physics and math. Math is also important but science comes first in my opinion because it is more interesting and is broader of a subject. When it comes to my preference, science isn’t very high up because t doesn’t interest me much and in the future I don’t see myself doing anything science relate because it doesn’t interest me and I don’t understand it as well as pure math and english literature. all education is important but english and physics will always be the most important. Cosmos is a good resource for people that are visual learners or for people that want to be entertained but learn at the same time.

Crash Course on Humans: Aesthetics Seminar Reflection

Link: https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1L-xffrN7xEt0r515U9yyud9oMen8n06gnJ8aoXQ_D2I

Question: Is beauty a simple biological imperative? Why or why not?

I don’t think beauty should matter, but it does. So is in an imperative?  Obviously not in my opinion. Beauty doesn’t do anything for a person, or anything  important anyways. It may make that person feel better but I don’t know why that could be important at all, because feelings not really matter. When i look at it the only thing that beauty does is create sex, often creating kids, keeping the Human Race going, but then again if there was no beauty people would still reproduce. Beauty isn’t only in people, but landscapes. Landscapes still have no benefit other than the “happy field effect”  so again beauty isn’t imperative at all because it doesn’t help us evolve. People mat say that happiness is key but a world without happiness would be fine because everyone would be accustom to being sad all the time, and theoretically would never know what happiness is.

On the topic of beauty, why is there beauty? It’s in sensible that someone said someone is “beautiful”, creating what beauty is. People can all have they’re own idea of what it is, but they also will always have societies idea in their head too.

 

The Importance of Grit: Seminar Reflection

Link: http://www.wired.com/2011/03/what-is-success-true-grit/

Question:  What behaviors limit you from achieving success through deliberate practice? How could you change that?

I think that I am stopped from deliberate practice, but only from the fact I can’t bring my self to it. I have success in school and with baseball without much hard practice, and that is only from talent. My success so from makes me think that I don’t NEED to practice, so I don’t. But I know that I have to work out and try to be successful to the level I want to be, but because practice is not an immediate need, I don’t follow through with deliberate practice. For baseball, which I have mainly talked about, I need someone else that will push me to work hard to get to the professional level, because at the moment I can’t seem to do that. For now, all I think I can change this is with someone else with me, or someone to push me even if they’re not physically there. If it has to be just me I need to find a way to push my self even if it’s something vey un orthodox. When it comes to school, I never have studied and plan not to other than the SAT and ACT because it is the most important text I will take all my life in school, effecting what college I can go to. I see no reason to study when i can already succeed without studying, so why do it. It will improve me on something I don’t like? I don’t see my self changing this, until there is a strong reason to do that.

Puppet

During this procedure of making my puppet, I learned lots regarding making puppets. The biggest takeaway for me was learning how to sew in general, but also the Henson stitch. Small things like knowing how to sew are cool because you never know when these small things are going to come in handy sometime in my life. Also, I got the chance to work on working with things I’m not already good at, which never happens any other times in my classes, so this kept one foot on the ground for me. Also, I had a great time doing this because we had lots of freedom while working on the puppets and personally I thought I used my time wisely. I also had a good idea for my puppet in the movie which I hope to incorporate in. I was going to have hands but I decided to not do it for the comedy effect as well as donate my already made hands to someone that was a bit behind. What I would change about this would be to make sure we have the correct amount of materials because it was very stressful not having everything we needed. I am proud that I finished with quality work with my puppet. He was a very attractive old man without arms and a Fo-man-chu. Overall I had a good time making my puppet but I look forward to making the movie even more so.

Cosmos Some Things Molecules Do: Video Reflection

Episode 2: http://www.cosmosontv.com/watch/195050051992

In light of the video, reflect on your connection to the other earthlings you share earth’s genetic code with.

My connection to the other earthlings you share earth’s genetic code with is large. I’m connected to so many people. I find it fascinating but I don’t really care for it other than the people closely related because I really have no way of knowing them at a level I would need to care for them, and they don’t usually serve a purpose to me. Although I don’t care for them I think that it is very interesting and cool how so many people are connected to me. The main way I realize this is by the animation of the Tree of Life in the video, which I had seen before, but it was never explained in depth until this point.  Overall I don;t care much about my connection with so many people yet only find it intriguing.

Learning about evolution on a molecular level was what really kept me engaged in the episode and is really my reason for planning on watching the rest of the series.  I recommend this series to all people not even interested in science and especially this partially episode.

Science, Religion, and the Big Bang: Video Reflection

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3MWRvLndzs

If you haven’t checked out other Minute Physics, check ‘e out! They’re fun videos with great l subjects and usually easy to understand.

What is the significance of the discovery of primordial gravitational waves from the first moment of the universe?

The significance of the discovery of primordial gravitation waves from the first moment of the universe is great. But first you must know what Gravitational waves are. They are ripples that carry energy across the universe. They were predicted to exist by Albert Einstein in 1916 as a consequence of his General Theory of Relativity[1]. So, the discovery of primordial gravitational waves is a good indiction and a strong piece of evidence that the universe, in its first minutes experienced a rapid expansion, also known as the Big Bang. So in other terms this discovery backs up the Big Bang Theory, also called the “Everywhere Stretch”, because as you probably guess, the universe stretched, well, everywhere. For more information on the Big Bang and related topics, check out the link at the top of this post!

Entropy: Video Reflection

Video: http:www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00fflcs

Question:Reflect on entropy and its relationship to deep time in space.

Entropy is the process in which all matter moves from an organized to an unorganized state.  Entropy is the measure of how many ways you can arrange an object without changing it.  In my own words entropy is a measure of how crazy something is, so the Taz-manian devil is always in a high entropy state, and and Bugs Bunny is usual at a low entropy state, not to “rearranged” or crazy. Another example is “when a glass plate is sitting on a something such as a counter in the kitchen or a dining table, it has a low entropy.  When that same plate is pushed off the counter or table and shatters on the ground, the plate is in a high entropy state”.  I got that example from Jake Harris, I quoted it because I found it very helpful. As time progresses all matter moves from a low to high entropy state.  The forward moving process is the arrow of time, which is related to the Grandfather paradox. The Grandfather paradox is the situation regarding time travel, and it plays out the scene of traveling back in time and  for some reason, killing him or him dying because of your presence. If that happens you couldn’t have been born. This really interests me because it is such a weird concept to grasp and proves that you can’t go back in time, other then memories. Brian Cox from BBC says that there is a very low chance that anything will go from high entropy back to low entropy. An example of this would be a popped ballon, because even if you have all the pieces you can never put a ballon back together.

LED Light

Above, a picture. A picture of my LED light that I built myself. This light was made with a red LED because when “Star Gazing”, white lights make it harder to see the stars, countering the point of star gazing. We plan on, and depending when you read this, will have gone star gazing out in the pitch black night somewhere isolated. This was definitely the most frustrating project I have done yet. This is not because of the difficulty, it’s the fact that I had problems with other classmates stealing my own materials to prevent me from finishing in the long run. Obviously, I was able to overcome that and finished my light with little time to spare. My take away from this was not the learning aspect but not to let problems get to me because I know i was not fun to be around for others and it really brought me down around this time period.

Mars One Way: Video Reflection

Question: Is it just or right for a healthy adult human to leave earth to live out the rest of his/her days on Mars?

Yes. I think that it is fine for a healthy adult to go to Mars. I really only have one reason, and that is because it is there choice. If someone doesn’t feel like they have a reason on Earth than I think that is completely up to them. I thought it was quite sad because most of these people seemed suicidal and didn’t care about anything. Also, many of the contestants had a significant other yet they still wanted to leave Earth for the rest of they’re lives even though they had someone to be there for and someone to be there for themselves, so I think it is a bad decision but it is they’re personal decision so I can’t do anything.

“Brick in The Wall” Part 2 Seminar: Reflection

Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDl6iuku_mw

Question:  What is your ideal learning environment?

I don’t think that there is an environment that is perfect for learning because every student has a different opinion. If there WAS an environment that was “perfect” for my would be a whole system that doesn’t depend on grades so you could just learn. Brian is trying to form his class around that idea, but I don’t think can be possible because colleges care about grades, therefore so do I. Also, a perfect learning environment would be no bullying because it can effect your work deeply because someone might not want to come to school because of bullies. My biggest fear or concern is not getting into Stanford because High Tech High isn’t as well respected as other bigger schools. This would be my perfect learning environment for learning.