Week 12
Reflection:
I found a really interesting book! Mike, the humanities teacher, introduced it to the class and it talks about Light by Bruce Watson. I didn't get super far, but the first few chapters are super interesting. I've never read anything like that. Everything that I've read about light were stand alone, but never an integrated history.
Chemistry:
How does something gooey and viscosious turn into a very solid, shiny plastic?
This week we learned about how epoxy (a polycarbonate molecule) bonds and thus creates a solid. But before we can go any further, we must step back and talk about Carbon. Carbon’s electron configuration lets it form four bonds.
So an electron from the 2s subshell moves to the higher 2pz subshell. Now there are four empty spaces for electrons from another electron that Carbon can share with. Since Carbon is also an element with a small radius, it also has high electronegativity. This means that Carbon can form bonds with many different elements.
Carbon can combine with other elements, usually hydrogen and one other element (if just H, it is called an hydrocarbon), to make polymer chains or one monomer that repeats itself endlessly. The bigger the chain, the more solid features it has. The Epoxy is basically short chains or monomers. When the hardener is added to the mix of Epoxy, the hardener acts as a catalyst and speeds up the reaction causing the short chains to join into bigger polymer chains. Depending on what brand of Epoxy and Hardener used, the time it takes for the reaction to take place varies as each brand has their own formula. The ones used
for class take about a day to completely harden and give that amazing plastic finish.
Humanities:
Through a few millennia of selection and careful breeding, the most curious learners were the ones that survived. Learning became essential to the point where it released dopamine (happiness trigger) every time something new was figured out. Humans have long since moved past the hunters and gatherers stage yet we still bear resemblance in our ambition to learn more about the world around us.
After humans have figured out the basics of life - they had food, families, social groups (cities) - learning took on a new meaning; they turned to other questions such as what the meaning of life was or why something in the world worked a certain way. There were many ways to answer this question. Some observed the world they lived in and expressed it in a different medium. Depending on their process of thought and the medium they expressed their opinions on, they were labelled as artists, philosophers and scientists.
The artists painted their views of the world. Using color, shadows and light to metaphorically represent the world. Their usage of symbols and mediums connected to everyone. They forced their audiences to look at the same view from a different angle. They expressed political and religious opinions through cleverly embedded symbols.
The ones that argued through reason and observation were the philosophers. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, philosophers and leaders of their time, wrote their thought experiments down in books and spread and debated their ideas with the people in their cities.
The ones that couldn’t keep their hands to themselves and attempted to break everything and put it together were labeled as the scientists. Galileo questioned everything. He didn’t go along with what the Church said. He observed the world around him by dropping things and making tools to learn the world around him. At first, he was punished for it, but a few years later he opened up a new world and provided a new lens for the generations that followed to explore it.
This work has moved civilizations and still moves us today. Observation after observation. Is this right? Questions and doubts. The best comes out when two people offer two unique, rivaling observations about the same topic. Who is right? The observers themselves are then forced to make a decision. They are pulled into this thought game and are forced to wonder. They run experiments, they watch their world from a new set of lens and they talk. The more people that know about it - the more ideas are generated and seen to end - propelling our world to new heights.
In the end, it started with the wonderer, the communicator. The scientist, artists and philosophers through their unique mediums communicate and connect the common person with the world. They are the facilitators, the ones that inspire others to question and dream. Their work opens up new worlds. They advertise for explorers and brew creativity. It is to them we owe our progress.
