Bio 103 Week Three: Space, Time, Diversity

On our last class I found so interesting the fact that out of so many species and all kinds of living things that we keep separating and finding more and more distinctions we forget or ignore that the bases for ALL of them are the same! When we went down on scales the smaller the scales, the less diverse all living organisms were becoming, yet is so amazing how different we ALL are. I mean, if we're all made up of the same atoms(or about the same) how come there isn't ONE person just like me or any one else. Of course, we all know that it's in our genes and they are all different -- but they're also made of the same matter. I guess I just would like to learn about the moment (in or formation) when we start to become different from one another.

I really liked talking about the things we did in class this past week. I've always had a lot of questions about the ideas of "spatial scales" (of course, I didn't call them that; it was more like, "mega huge stuff "and "tiny stuff"), and I finally had so many of them answered. So my parents and I were having dinner this weekend, and I was explaining to them what we were talking about in our Bio class - the universe expanding yet being finite, the different spatial scales, how elements come from stars exploding, etc. My mom found this all really exciting - she's a bit obsessed with biology-physics things - but my dad was a bit confused. He said, "So space and time caused the big bang?" I said that no one is really sure what caused the big bang, but that space and time were created in it; initially, there was a bunch of nothing. He couldn't understand how nothing could be "there." I tried to explain this by saying, "Well, Dad, the Hopi Indians had a concept for time that can't even be translated into English, so it's kind of like that." (Actually, though, I'm not really sure how the big bang is like that, but I thought it sounded kind of intellectual.) But then I started thinking about this idea that had my dad so confused, as well as this probably unrelated idea of the Hopi Indians' idea of time, and I became confused myself. I just don't understand this concept of complete, total nothingness.

Up until this point, I didn't feel uncomfortable at all with the idea of there being no one "truth," that we can't solve problems and answer questions with one magical idea. But now I've had my first real challenge in accepting that there's something we really don't know (and that I think it's OK not to understand "nothingness"). Hopefully, I'll encounter more of these challenges; having a whole group of them might make me really face the fact that the "truth" is that there isn't a truth.

Although I am no expert in physicsm I just could but grapple with the fact that

Although I am no expert in physics I just could but grapple with the fact that space was made from nothing and is continuing to expand. Ever since middle school physics class, I was taught about Louis de Broglie and his law of conservation of mass. As the law states, although the shape of the substance may change, shouldn’t the mass be constant? ( Again.. I am not a expert in physics and I could be totally incorrect in referencing Broglie and if I am please forgive me )

 

I simply cannot grasp how space was created from nothing and can continue to expand as we speak. I hope further research both in and out of class will clarify this situation for me.

 

andy

Before beginning this class, I never really quite thought about or questioned what the ideas of "space" and "time" meant in relation to the universe (which was a much more complex and intricate concept than I thought before) and this week made me further question what was the end points of the universe.

I always accepted the idea that the universe is comprised of stars and various matter orbiting in space and that there is no quite definite beginning or end. The universe always seemed to be just a blurry concept to me and I never questioned what the exact length of it is.

I'm the type of person who needs an exact number in order to fully visualize what that length looks like, but the fact that the universe is a certain billion light years in diameter just startled and confused me. It just made me think: What is out there if the universe has a specific beginning and end? Just space?

The topic this week blew my mind. I remember leaving class each day and just not knowing what to think simply because there is so much to think about.  Earlier in the week when we covered the larger scale I was amazed at how many things there are that I had never thought about. I didn't think that I would be as amazed later in the week when we went over the smaller scale, but I was. I was surprised at how many similarities there are between the scales...I don't know if this is extremely relevant but I thought it was interesting that there is a point in each scale where they cease to be considered as improbable assemblies and at these points they look very similar. That they look similar at this point is becomes obvious once you think about the physical characteristics of improbable assemblies but who has ever done that outside of class? Another similarity I think is interesting is that there is a point on each scale where life can no longer exist in one organism. It is interesting to think about why this is, both in terms of an individual organisms ability to maintain itself, and in relation to the rest of the world. If life did exist at these scales, what would that mean for the rest of us and the environment? 

For some time in high school, I was convinced I was going to pursue a career in cosmology. The study of the cosmos. What could get more interesting than exploring the universe, space far beyond what humans have explored thus far, discovering new worlds... exploring the concept of dark energy and matter?

(But the intense mathematics that goes along with cosmology kind of scared me away from that subject. Ew math.)

I guess I just like asking questions and searching for answers (or observations) when it comes to the universe. It's crazy, isn't it? This world we live in is huge; the universe has a definate "end," but it's still expanding. AND it's expansion is accelerating. For no apparent reason. Other than some kind of "negative gravity." NEGATIVE GRAVITY. Doesn't that just boggle your mind? Which way is up anymore, anyway, if we're just kind of a speck floating in this great empty space?

So while I found the small scale interesting, (bacteria, viruses, atoms, quarks!), I think pushing farther into the universe and observing it's intricacies will help us to better understand "life" as a whole. Life seems so big here, around ourselves, on Earth. But the universe has a lot of empty space, a lot of room without anything in it. I want to fill in the blanks.

I am satisfied with our exploration of small scales. We kept going smaller and smaller until we got to the building blocks of life (with which we were already familiar) and the building blocks of these building blocks and so on and so forth. I wonder a little about what makes up the quarks and wut makes up that and so on and so on, however I have accepted the ambiguity of the question and will wait for new observations to be made that offer possible solutions to this problem on the smaller scale.

The larger scale on the other hand is completely mind boggling. The only thing harder to imagine than an infinite universe is a limited universe. But either way the size of the universe as we know it is still startling. I dont necessarily believe in "aliens" but upon seeing with my own eyes the scale of space, I feel ignorant for ever believing that Earth could have some sort of monopoly on life. There are hundreds of thousands of other places in "space" that may or may not have life, and it is quite possible that we may never find them all.

Everytime I see the stars, I get incredibly frustrated because we can't just leave planet Earth and explore them. They're so far away.

It was mentioned in class that "biology" is complicated to teach because it is always changing/evolving. I believe that since everything changes due to others observations, we can not define many things. I agree with Luisana when she said "It's hard to accept the universe having a limit." How can we be sure of this? I am very skeptical about the spacial scale because i feel like this scale can change. With new technology enhancing, anything is possibel but change is guaranteed!

Shanika Bridges-King

Of course I've always known that the universe was big, however after we discussed it in class this week I realized how big it was, and it was very overwhelming.

However I also thought it was strange when we talked about how the Universe has a diameter of 10-15 billion light years.  I always thought that the universe was never ending...but this came as a bit of a shock to me.  How could the universe have a limit?  I always depended on it being never ending-that’s what the Universe means to me whenever I think about it.  So to think of the Universe as having a limit is sort of contradictory to what I know.

 

To be honest, I was a bit overwhelmed by the sheer size of space… if the nearest stars outside the solar system are over a thousand light years away, what will be the chances that we will ever interact with life outside earth?

 

Even if one assumes that life outside earth is advanced enough to be able to accept signals (such as through the SETI program) is it even worth the effort to pursue such program at this stage of technology? (Wouldn’t it be more effective to concentrate our efforts in improving the speed of communication and transportation?)

 

I am not saying that studying space is not important in understanding the earth and its immediate surroundings. It is important to learn and study about space since it will have a both direct and indirect impact on Earth and us. I am just skeptical of why we should conduct programs such as SETI at this point given our level of technological development.

andy