The Disappearing Spoon Chapter 4
Summary:
It first starts off by asking as to where all of the elements came from and if Somebody actually even created life as we know it and everything around it. Then it starts saying information as how long long it took to create everything in the universe and how it took less time to do so than cooking a duck and potatoes. By 1939, German and American scientists had proved that the sun and other stars heated themselves by fusing hydrogen together to form helium and how their populations actually slightly change. Although the populations of hydrogen and helium slightly changes, the populations of other elements don’t change at all. Stars are then argued that they are able to control the fate of mankind and starts talking about the process of how the stars that are full of hydrogen start fusing into creating helium. The stars then get desperate trying to control their hydrogen and start fusing their helium into their cores; doing this makes the stars create both odd and even numbered elements. Stars would keep on burning the hydrogen that they have until a few hundred million years pass; after so, the star then dies or starts to die.
Whether the star is big or small, they still usually last right about the same amount of time and both of them also end up using the elements they had stored to give them extra time. After a star has little to no energy left in it, it then begins the process of going supernova. Supernova is the process a star goes through when it is about to die; the star going supernova collapses under its own gravity and explodes outward destroying anything within a radius of millions of miles. After giving this information it then starts talking about how Jupiter came to be due to an explosion of a supernova. After it finished talking about information on supernovas, it then started talking about the history on Jupiter and how people reacted to a comet that was heading towards Earth. Scientists then say that Jupiter is probably more of a failed star than it is a planet; evidence for that would be the pressure Jupiter has and how it has the same properties that a star would have. The only thing that would be missing to call Jupiter a planet would be that Jupiter is missing a nuclear furnace.
It then starts to give the history of how and how long it took to create the rocky planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars) in our solar system. Before the rocky planets even began to form, the gas giants already began to form themselves around 100 million years prior. Compared to the planets that are around our solar system, our four rocky planets all have their own different type of abundance of each type of element. Furthermore, when something comes in contact with a supernova explosion, the radiation that emits from the explosion immediately starts to decay it. Then it starts to talk about the atomic weights of the elements in the periodic table and how it differs in every galaxy whether it is higher or lower than the ones in our galaxy. After so, it then starts to talk about how scientists were able to find out how the planets were formed and what they are made of. The reason as to why we know this information now is due to the insanely meticulous experiments that a graduate student from Chicago in the 1950’s performed.
The name of the man that did this is Clair Patterson; Patterson had known the exact rate at which uranium breaks down and that there were kinds of lead that existed. The only problem was that uranium could only break down into two of those lead types and needed to figure out how much higher that ratio was now than it was before. Sadly, nobody was around to be able to record the original ratios, but Patterson eventually was able to find a way around that problem. Later on, Patterson became obsessed with getting rid of human lead from anything and felt that people were bad for him. However, in return he was able to estimate the Earth’s age and was able to make cars not run on lead fuel anymore. Finally, it then starts talking about asteroids and the reasons as to how and why they hit us or not.
Reflection:
I enjoyed reading this chapter since I was able to learn even more interesting things, but if anything I’d say that I didn’t enjoy reading this chapter in particular as much as I did with the others. This chapter didn’t really include a story of a person unlike the other three chapters that did; if there was a more complete story of how and a person did, I would have enjoyed it much more. In this chapter, I learned a lot of information as to how stars work and especially how Jupiter is more of a failed star than a planet. I also learned what would possibly happen if a comet or meteor were to hit our planet and more information on the planets and stars in the galaxy and even beyond. Overall, I enjoyed reading the information on here, but wish there were at least one complete story on somebody intriguing.
Guided Questions:
- Pre-Reading: What do you already know about stars and their life cycle? Which elements are involved during the process of fusion in the sun? Why don’t stars fuse elements beyond iron on the periodic table?
Before reading this chapter, I had already known that stars are formed by clouds that fused together and that they could only last for a few hundred million years while using hydrogen. During the process of fusion in a star, elements like lithium, boron, beryllium, and carbon are created. Plus, stars do fuse more elements than just iron, we just need to know if iron is in a star to know that it contains everything.
- Why is Jupiter such an interesting planet? Give several reasons, including some that relate to the elements.
First of all, the way Jupiter was formed is really interesting; Jupiter was formed several years before Earth was even being formed and it was formed due to a supernova explosion that entered our solar system. Second of all, Jupiter is more than just a gas planet, it is also a failed star planet. While looking more into the properties of Jupiter, scientists discovered that it had the same ones that a star would have. And third of all, Jupiter has had a storm the size of three Earths lasting for several years now.
- Summarize how Clair Patterson was able to conclude that the Earth is about 4.55 billion years old. Most scientists agree that the universe is about 14 billion years old...how in general can scientists agree on something that none of us were around for?
Clair Patterson was able to estimate that the Earth is about 4.55 billion years old by backtracking the element that had been here since the dawn of time: uranium. Plus, scientists were able to estimate the universe's age by doing the same thing on asteroids and comets. You could be sure that the information is correct because of the material that they collect and by estimating the how long its been there.
