QQC #4

"When zero is added to a number or subtracted from a number, the number remains unchanged; and a number multiplied by zero becomes zero. Today a child is taught this at school at an early age, but in 628 A.D it took the genius of a mathematician to think in this unique way."

You never really realize how something we see as being so simple and obvious was such a huge deal way back when. I have never really taken the time to sit and think about how numbers and the idea of counting came to be even though it is such a big part of our lives today. I can't imagine trying to live in the world we have today without having a way of counting something or even having a set word for each number. It also amazes me how everything kind of evolved into what we have today. Counting started with sticks and stones, to tally marks, to sounds and so on.

Question: How do we know when to stop "improving" something? Or should there always be a way to make something better than it was before?

QQC #3

"When we look at him we see MICHAEL JORDAN. But at that point he was only Michael Jordan."

Being an athlete I think I read this article with a different perspective. My whole life I have been told that I am a "natural athlete" I seem to pick up the skills needed for a sport almost instantly. But that doesn't mean that I don't make mistakes as well. I believe that some people are born with a more athletic ability than others but that doesn't mean you don't have to work in order to improve your skills. When I first started playing softball I understood the game right away but I still had to go to practice to be with my team and learn NEW skills that I could work on. To me, the quote above says that until you put effort into something you truly believe in, your name will just be a name. But when you put in that effort and become successful your name will become an icon that people in the future will look up to.

Question: Is it ever ok to give up? If so, when?

QQC #2

"So if Pluto really is a planet, it is certainly an odd one. It is very tiny: just one-quarter of 1 percent as massive as Earth. If you set it down on top of the United States, it would cover not quite half the lower forty-eight states."

Ever since I was in Elementary School I have been fascinated with out solar system. I used to write page long essays about each planet on my own time and share them with my family. But I never knew that Pluto was actually that small. Through my research I learned that it was a small planet but not so small that it wouldn't even cover the United States. It messes with your brain a little bit. When you think of a planet you'd usually think of this massive ball that is extremely far away but when you learn that Pluto could fit within Earth, it kind of catches you off guard.

Question: Are there other living beings in the universe? With the universe being so big there has to be.

QQC #1

"No matter how hard you try you will never be able to grasp just how tiny, how spatially unassuming, is a proton."

It amazes me that even though protons are so extremely small, so small that on this dot of this "i" there could be around 500,000,000,000 of them, but we still know that they exist. It has always been hard for me to believe something exists without being able to see it with my own eyes but I guess that I just have to believe that they are real. I, personally, wouldn't want to take the time and try to actually see a proton. It seems so crazy that there is so much to ourselves and our world that we have never seen before or even completely understand but we live each day as if it's not there.

How did someone first discover the proton?