BR_Bill Bryson A Brief History Flashcards
Long human life only adds up to how many hours?
650,000 hours.
MN: How much of existing life on Earth realizes that it in fact exist?
Most of life does not realize it exist!
Bacteria, germs, plants, worms, insects
Why is it impossible to reach the end of the universe?
Man could not even reach the end of our solar system traveling at the speed of light! But pretending that you could go that far and that fast to theoretically reach the end of the universe, you could never reach it because you would wind up in the same place you started. {Because the universe circles around like a circle.}
Could we take a modern day space ship to our nearest star neighbor, Alpha Centauri, 4.3 light years away?
Our modern day spacecraft would take at least 25,000 years to arrive if our ship was not destroyed by space debris on the way there.
How big was the Manson Crater?
Three miles deep and 20 miles across.
MN: You could fit the Grand Canyon’s widest point [1 mile] 20 times side by side inside this crater. However, it was filled to the brim with passing ice sheets depositing rich glacial till, then graded smooth. Now it is completely level.
How wide is the Yellowstone Crater?
Yellowstone Crater is 65 Kilometers wide.
How much skin do we shed per day?
Ten Billion flakes of skin shed each day!
MN: Most too tiny to see. REM they make up the dust in your house.
How much bacteria lives underground?
If you dumped it all on the surface, it would cover the planet to a depth of 15 Meters, the height of a four story building.
What are the four chunks that Geology is divided into?
- Pre-cambrian
- Palaeozoic [old life]
- Mesozoic [middle life]
- Cenozoic [recent life]
When were dinosaurs discovered?
1861, Richard Owen, Palaeontology.
Dinosauria meant “Terrible Lizard”. But it is an inapt name. We now know some were no bigger than rabbits.
MN: One year before my grandfather was born. By 1862, nobody knew anything about dinosaurs.
Richard Owen [coined the term dinosaur, 1861] made a lasting change to museums. What was the change?
Before Owen, Museums were designed primarily for the elite, and even they found it difficult to gain access. In the early days of the British Museum, prospective visitors had to make a written application and undergo a brief interview to determine if they were fit to be admitted at all. They then had to return a second time to pick up a ticket, assuming they had passed the interview, and finally come back a third time to view the museum’s treasures. Even then they were whisked through in groups and not allowed to linger.
Owen opened it up to everybody! Now everyone could tour the museum at their leisure.
Plus, he installed labels on the displays so people would know what they were looking at!
How did Sweden become the leading producer of matches?
A German chemist named Hennig Brand in 1675 became convinced that gold could be distilled from human urine. {The similar color must have been a factor in his conclusion}
He converted the urine into a paste and then into a waxy substance. None of it yielded gold, but after a time, the substance began to glow. Then when exposed to air, it often spontaneously burst into flame.
This became known as phosphorus, Greek for light bearing.
At first, soldiers were called on to provide the raw material. In the 1750’s, (75 years later), a Swedish chemist named Karl Scheele devised a way to manufacture phosphorus without the mess or smell of urine.
Because Sweden had this mastery of phosphorus, Sweden still to this day is a leading producer of matches.
Why is the chart of elements called the “Periodic” table?
Because, if you follow the chart, the properties repeat themselves periodically.
How did Helium get its name?
Even though it is the second most abundant element in the universe, it was discovered not on Earth, but on the Sun. So it was named after the Sun God Helios.
Why do we sneeze?
Bacteria forces us to sneeze to spread their population, much like a plant lets its seeds be spread by the wind.
