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Q C C Q " HOW TO SUCCEED" Reading

Quote #1  " Just 5 percent of American males born in 1990 graduated from college, and those 5 percent were the elite in every way: wealthy, white, well-connected.”

#2 ” Not long ago, the United States led the world in producing college graduates; now it leads the world in long producing dropouts.”

#3 ” Why are so many Americans students dropping out of college just as a college degree has become so valuable and just as young people in the rest of the world have begun to graduate in such remarkable numbers?”

Comment & connection Comment for quote #1: That’s kind of an awkward thing to mention, I don’t know how thats important but okay. It kinda bothered me when they wrote “elite in every way" 

Comment for #2 & #3

I think the reason for that now is because other places like South Korea's or Japan's put more stress on the children to do well at school and become good workers, while in North America it's more focused on following what you want to do rather than doing well in school. 

Question

Apparently our education system isn't bad, what are the things that people see bad/good about our education?

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The Three Laws of Mastery

Quote

" That those who have an 'entity theory' believe that intelligence is just that--an entity. It exists within us, an infinite supply that we cannot increase. Those who subscribe to an 'incremental theory' take different view. They believe that while intelligence may vary from person to person, it is ultimately something that, with effort, we can increase."

  "Mastery is an Asymptote"

Comment & Connection

-low self-esteem = Won't accomplish much

- Well I personally think that anyone can be intelligent, just it takes longer for others to take in information. 

- You can never quite reach perfection, you can get close to it but not be it. 

Question

What were they trying to explain when they took away the things people enjoyed? (Were they trying to explain how taking away peoples' enjoyment can make them slower and apathetic?)

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Leibniz Reading #1

Quote

" Leibniz was born in 1646 at Leipzig, where his father was a professor of moral philosophy at the university. He was sent to a good school, but after his father's death in 1652 he seem to have acted for the most part as his own teacher, leading a self-propelled intellectual life even as a small child. The German books that were available to him were quickly read through. He began to teach himself Latin at the age of 8, and soon mastered it sufficiently to read it with ease and compose acceptable Latin verses; he started the study of Greek a few years later."  

Comment & Connect

It seems pretty amazing how he was able to teach himself Latin at age 8, though younger kids absorb things easily. Though I wonder how he dealt with his father's death. He sounds like pretty tenacious man.

Question

How did he deal with his father's death?

When was math created?

Can we make more mathematical things or formulas?

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QCCQ Newton Reading #1

Quote

" Not much is know about Newton's life at Cambridge in the early years of his professorship, but it is certain that optics and the construction of telescopes among his main interest. He experimented with many techniques for grinding lenses (using tools which he made himself.)"

Comment & Connect

It's cool that he built the first reflecting telescope and wasn't the type that would necessarily brag or bring attention about it. It makes him seem like a modest artist, he creates beautiful work but doesn't want anyone to see it so he sorta hides it. 

Question

How does one grind a lenses for telescopes? 

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Bryson Reading #5 - Part 5 Q-Q-C

Quote

Amazingly, people do voluntarily dive to such depths, without breathing apparatus, for the fun of it in a sport known as free diving. Apparently the experience of having your internal organs rudely deformed is thought exhilarating (though not presumably as exhilarating as having them return to their former dimensions upon resurfacing). To reach such depths, however, divers must be dragged down, and quite briskly, by weights.

Question

Do you have to train in order to free dive? 

Comment

I wonder how far can someone free dive before the pressure of the sea level get to them. Honestly I wouldn't do it, sounds scary and painful. :(

Quote

The real terror of the deep, however,  is the bends—not so much because they are unpleasant, though of course they are, as because they are so much more likely. The air we breathe is 80 percent nitrogen. Put the human body under pressure, and that nitrogen is transformed into tiny bubbles that migrate into the blood and tissues. If the pressure is changed too rapidly—as with a too-quick ascent by a diver—the bubbles trapped within the body will begin to fizz in exactly the manner of a freshly opened bottle of champagne, clogging tiny blood vessels, depriving cells of oxygen, and causing pain so excruciating that sufferers are prone to bend double in agony—hence “the bends.”

Question

How many people die from "the bends"?

If you get "the bends" is there a way to treat it?

Comment

That sounds terribly painful, I mean, would it feel like you're suffocating er what? Can you even feel those tiny bubbles inside you? Can't even imagine how that would feel!

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Bryson Reading #4 - Part 4 Q-Q-C

Quote

" A few yards beyond, it turned out, was one  of the most extraordinary fossil beds ever discovered in North America, a dried-up water hole that had served as a mass grave for scores of animals—rhinoceroses, zebra-like horses, saber-toothed deer, camels, turtles. All had died from some mysterious cataclysm just under twelve million years ago in the time known to geology as the Miocene. In those days Nebraska stood on a vast, hot plain very like the Serengeti of Africa today. The animals had been found buried under volcanic ash up to ten feet deep. The puzzle of it was that there were not, and never had been, any volcanoes in Nebraska. "

Question

How did Nebraska become a luscious green land when before it was hot Serengeti?

What is "the Miocene"?

Comment

I wonder if they can find any fossils there. . .

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Bryson Reading #3- Chapter 2 Q-Q-C

Quote

" Einstein couldn’t bear the notion that God could create a  universe in which some things were forever unknowable. Moreover, the idea of action at a distance—that one particle could instantaneously influence another trillions of miles away—was a stark violation of the special theory of relativity."

Question

Did Einstein's belief spark a disagreement or how people viewed him?

Comment

I think its funny how in texts book they don't even mention details like this, personally I think it would make it more interesting and broaden people's views.

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Bryson Reading #2- Chapter 2 Q-C-C-Q

Section 4: The Measure of Things

Quote

Set atop these odd beliefs and quirky traits, however, was the mind of a supreme genius—though even when working in conventional channels he often showed a tendency to peculiarity. As a student, frustrated by the limitations of conventional mathematics, he invented an entirely new form, the calculus, but then told no one about it for twenty-seven years. In like manner, he did work in optics that transformed our understanding of light and laid the foundation for the science of spectroscopy, and again chose not to share the results for three decades. 

Connection & Comment

I think he was afraid the reason why he tried to hide was because the people at that time might've had a hard time believing whatever it was he was trying to hide.

Question

Why would you want to hide something for so long? Was he afraid that they might try to kill him? 

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Bryson Reading Q-C-C-Q

Quote

" Of the billions and billions of species of living thing that existed since the dawn of time, most-99.99 percent are no longer around. Life on Earth, you see, is not only brief but also dismayingly tenuous. It is a curious feature that we come from a planet that is very good at promoting but even better at extinguishing it."

Connect

In life things eventually come and go, they never stay. As cool as it sounds to be immortal, I'd personally think that it would be burden and sorta take away the purpose of living. Things come and go, circle of life! 

Comment

I really like how the author writes and describes how life is on earth, I find it kinda funny. We can live to be 100 years old but who would want to exist forever anyways? Personally I think it'd be a very foolish idea or you're just really that bored. I personally think that death is what helps us figure out a reason why we should live.

Question

Which species has lived the longest?