Newton Reading

"in 1963 Newton suffered a severe mental illness accompanied by delusions, deep melancholy and fear of persecution. He complained that he could not sleep and he said that he lacked his former consistency of mind. He lashed out with wild accusations in a shocking letter to his friends Samuel Pepys and John Locke. Pepys was informed that there friendship was over and Newton could no longer see him no more. Locke was charged with trying to entangle him with women and with being a hobbyist(a follower of Hobbs)"

Out of everything I read about Newton this was one of the few things that stuck out the most to me from the reading. Mostly because of Hallie and Max`s project on the mental illnesses of famous mathematicians that it is said to believe that them being so smart is what brought on the mental illnesses. When I read the quote above I instantly connected it to the other four mathematicians that had illnesses the same as Newton.

I also remember the video that we watching in Margaret's class about the man who was trying to figure out pi , He was schizophrenic i believe, he heard voices in his head and he believed there was a chip in his head that was turning him crazy, but in the end he figured it was just because he was too smart and the numbers were ruining his brain. In the quote above when Newton told John Locke that he was "trying to entangle him" it made me think of the Pi movie where his brain is just so smart and there is something always going on in there that there is no room for normal reality so he eventually will have some sort of mental illness.

My questions is there a way that we can do some sort of test on there brain where we can find out wither or not they turn crazy from being to smart?

Bryson Reading Chapter 4-5

"Kelvin wasn’t being willful .it was simply that there was nothing in physics that could explain how a body the size of the sun could burn continuously for more than a few tens of millions of years at most without exhaustion its fuel. Therefore it followed that the sun and it planets were relatively, but inescapably youthful."

I have two questions my first question is that haven't scientist proved that the world has been here for like 4.something billion years, and the sun has had to have been here for the same amount of time.
But I'm confused as to what there trying to convey in the quote above about how the sun couldn't last for tens of millions of years? is it saying there is no pyhsics to explain how the sun is there for tens of millions of years? And also isn't it hard for astronomers to study the sun because there isn't a way for us to efficiently study like go to the sun and calculate different things like we did on the moon?

"Among the questions that attracted interest in that fanatically inquisitive age was one that had puzzled people for a very long tine namely why ancient clamshells and other marine fossils were so often found on mountaintops. How on earth did they get there?"

It was also crazy how the world was once fully covered in water, and they found seashells and different things one would find underwater today on the mountain. showing proof that the water level was once that high up.

For me it is shocking because I begin to wonder where all of that water went once the sea levels began to go down and turn into what we see now as land.

Did that water disappear? If so will the water continue to disappear until there is no water left?

Bryson Reading Chapter 4

“Once he inserted a bodkin-a long needle of the sort used for sewing leather- into his eye socket and rubbed it around “betwixt my eye and bone as near to the backside of my eye as I could” just to see what would happen. What happened miraculously was nothing-at least nothing lasting. “

How is it that you can stick something inside of your eye and it not be hurt or damaged at any extent ? Also how is he "prickly to the point of paranoia" but he could bare to stick a bodkin(needle)in his eye and like not freak out?

I also think that Newton is kind of a freak of course , but I think that its legit how he pretty much answered his own questions and did his own experiences on himself, like he probably one of those hours he was sitting in the bed after waking up he could have been like "Hmm I wonder what would happen to my vison if I stare at the sun? " Then he goes out to get results to his question. It kind of freaks me out but in the same breath its legit.


"He perceived the wavelike nature of earth wakes, conducted much original research into magnetism and gravity and quite extraordinarily envisioned the possibility of black holes two hundred year s before anyone else."

My second question is how can someone prodict the wave pattern of a earthqauke if earthqakes pretty much happen from tetonic plates underground?

Maybe im wrong but back them idk if they had certin technoligoy or even a signifigant way of figuring out things deep down. But then again there was alot of different things discovered way back yander so maybe im just not fully understanding. Once again its also kind of cool to think learn about the founding fathers of alot of useful imformation we use in todays day and age.

Bryson Reading Chapter 2-3

"distant stars they can infer the size and character
and even potential habitability of planets much too remote to be seenplanets
so distant that it would take us half a million years in a spaceship
to get there. With their radio telescopes they can capture wisps of radiation
so preposterously faint that the total amount of energy collected from outside
the solar system by all of them together since collecting began (in
1951) is "less than the energy of a single snowflake striking the ground/' in
the words of Carl Sagan."

This was the most striking to me , simply because it was the opening paragraph of the article so it had to be mind capturing to pull the reader in and thats exactly what happen to me. Im confused as to how they can capture the total amount of energy by collecting it from outside the solar system? it seems like it would be nearly impossible to collect energy from planets from so far away that we wouldnt be able to get there for half a million years traveling in a spaceship.


My question is why can we see and take photos of these planets that are so far away but we will never be able to actually see them up close in person? There is probbly so many things in space that would be benifitual for us to know that could possibly hurt or help our planet in the near future. Like how James Christy discovered pluto had a moon on it , leads us to finding out other things about these planets.

My Other question is how do we know these facts about these planets if weve never actually visited them like in the article it mentions that Jupiter and Saturn are about 4.5 trillion miles away. How could they possible know that from looking at a picture or a radiation telescope?

Bryson Reading

"The average species on earth last for only about four million years so if you wish to be around for billions of years,you must be as frickle as the atoms that ,atoms that made you."

My question is if what the quote above is saying is true does it mean that there wont be human species in four million years?

But don't species Evolve with time so there will be different type of the same species.