Assignments
• Watch Episode 13, Seven Wonders of the New World, and submit your questions and comments as usual.
• At the bottom of this page, under Other Resources, are two poems. Read and think about them, trying to arrive at satisfying interpretations. In their scientific content, they have something in common. Can you describe it?
To think about
• Think about broader matters, such as your personal assessment of the full series, favorite parts, criticisms.
• Think about what you consider unfinished business from previous episodes: ideas that were not clear to you and in need of revisiting.
• Below is a list of headlines that a little girl in the episode creates as she imagines how the future might unfold.
Which headlines speak most to you personally?
Which seem most readily achievable?
What new headlines would you add to the list?
Here they are:
1 QUANTUM PHYSICS PROVES MULTIPLE REALITIES ARE REAL
2 FUSION REACTOR ONLINE — ENTIRE CITY OF PARIS POWERED BY A TEASPOON OF WATER
3 FIRST CONTACT WITH BLUE WHALES SONGS TRANSLATED — THEY’RE FURIOUS!
4 AMAZON RAINFOREST TRIPLES IN SIZE
5 FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 1966 — NO ENTRIES ON THE ENDANGERED SPECIES LIST
6 TENTH CARBON COLOSSUS ERECTED IN CAPETOWN
7 LAST INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE DONATED TO MUSEUM
8 POLAR ICE CAPS ARE GROWING
9 MOLLUSKS THAT EAT PLASTIC FOR BREAKFAST MAKE SIGNIFICANT PROGRESS IN CLEANSING THE OCEANS
10 GANGES RIVER WATER CERTIFIED POTABLE
11 GLOBAL MEAN TEMPERATURE RETURNS TO EARLY 20TH CENTURY LEVEL
12 OZONE LAYER FULLY RESTORED
13 EARTH HAS RECOVERED FROM INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
Questions for Discussion
Student questions will appear here
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It's hard not to imagine a God figure who played a major part in creating the universe, the earth, us instead of just putting it towards a logical chemical reaction/chain of events that brought the world we know into existence!
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At least twice in this series, Tyson states that “evolution makes for more complex beings” (my paraphrase). But I don’t see that natural selection implies increased complexity, only better adaptability. ??
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From The New York Times: Where Did the Dinosaur-Killing Impactor Come From?
A new study blames a comet fragment for the death of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. But most experts maintain that an asteroid caused this cataclysmic event.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/15/science/dinosaur-extinction-kt-comet-asteroid.html?smid=em
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The Massive Planet Scientists Can't Find
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Record-Breaking Ozone Hole Closes
https://public.wmo.int/en/media/news/record-breaking-2020-ozone-hole-closes
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Without the chemistry of photosynthesis, ozone, and a molecule called Rubisco, none of us would be here.
From tonight's (Feb 17, 2021) NOVA on Maine PBS.
••••••
Other Resources
Unsaid
A.R. Ammons
Have you listened for the things I have left out?
I am nowhere near the end yet and already
hear
the hum of omissions,
the chant of vacancies, din of
silences:
there is the other side of matter, antimatter,
the antiproton:
we
have measured the proton: it has mass: we
have measured the antiproton: it has negative mass:
you will not
hear me completely even at this early point
unless you hear my emptiness:
go back:
how can I
tell you what I have not said: you must look for it
yourself: that
side has weight, too, though words cannot bear it
out: listen for the things I have left out:
I am
aware
of them, as you must be, or you will miss
the non-song
in my singing: it is not that words cannot say
what is missing: it is only that what is missing
cannot
be missed if
spoken: read the parables of my unmaking:
feel the ris-
ing bubble's trembling walls: rush into the domes
these wordy arches shape: hear
me
when I am
silent: gather the boundaried vacancies.
https://www.babelmatrix.org/works/en/Ammons,_A._R.-1926/Unsaid
