QQC: Numbers Reading

Question: How did someone make up numbers, name each one, and how did the concept of numbers spread so much? Also what makes humans be able to count that animals don't have?

Quote: The trick they used was very simple: as warriors left to go to battle, they each put a rock in the pile. When they got home again, they each removed one. The number of rocks left equaled the number of men lost.

Comment: I was reading the picture diagram about the Zuni pronunciation of numbers and I thought the actual definition of the things they said (the finger that divides equally) was a clever thing to do. It makes me wonder how they even thought about counting things and dividing things like that.

QQC #1

Question:

Why do people sort of praise the 'naturals' more than those that have worked hard to get where they are?

Quote:

Float Like a butterfly

sting like a bee

you can't hit

what your eyes can't see.

Comment:

I really liked this quote in particular because I can connect with it. I play soccer so to me its sort of like you can be graceful you can be on target or whatever but most of all you have to be focused or else the other two things won't even matter. Another thing that I connected with in this article is being in the state of mind of growth, and how they said when you find success in just learning new things or sharpening your skills in addition to winning.

Bryson Reading Chapter 2-3

"Lowelrs other abiding conviction was that there existed, somewhere

out beyond Neptune, an undiscovered ninth planet, dubbed Planet X Lowell

based this belief on irregularities he detected in the orbits of Uranus

and Neptune, and de,voted the last years of his life to trying to find the

gassy giant he was certain was out there."

I like this comment because it shows an actual person, and their dedication to something as well as their curiosity. You probably have to be very curious and ambitious to suspect that there is a ninth planet, planet x, and to actual spend the rest of your life looking for that plant until you die, thats a big sign of dedication. He was really after finding that planet, and he didn't give up.

Is planet X one of those gigantic planets that we saw in the video on the first week of this class? I remember it went past pluto or something the sun maybe, and the planets or starts, whatever they were, were just getting so big. Bigger than you can imagine.

Introduction

Quote: And when that modest milestone flashes past, or at some other poaint thereabouts, for reasons unknown your atoms will shut you down, silently disassemble, and of off to be other things. And thats it for you.

Questions: Is there a definite amount of atoms in the universe? Do more grow, or is it always the same number of atoms?

Commentary: I think the article is interesting how they describe how atoms just work the way they do without thinking, and without them we'd be nothing. Its also interesting how, by itself, an atom is just some tiny particle of dust, so its wierd how a bunch of what we'd think to be 'nothings' are what we are made up of.