In their book The Grand Design, Hawking and Mlodinow explain the way theories about quantum mechanics and relativity came together to shape our understanding of how our universe (and possibly others) formed out of nothing.

Hawking is eloquent in the way he describes and explains the workings of the universe.

Orbital eccentricity is a measure of how near an ellipse is to a circle. The degree to which an ellipse is squashed is described by what is called its eccentricity, a number between zero and one. The earth’s orbit has an eccentricity of only about 2 percent, which means it is nearly circular. Circular orbits are friendly to life, while very elongated orbits result in large seasonal temperature fluctuations. On Mercury, for example, with a 20 percent eccentricity, the temperature is over 200 degrees F warmer at the planet’s closest approach to the sun (perihelion) than when it is at its farthest from the sun (aphelion). (p. 150-151)

In 1992 came the first confirmed observation of a planet orbiting a star other than our sun. We now know of hundreds of such planets, and few doubt that there exists countless others among the many billions of stars in our universe. That makes the coincidences of our planetary conditions–the single sun, the lucky combination of earth-sun distance and solar mass–far less remarkable, and far less compelling as evidence that the earth was carefully designed just to please us human beings. Planets of all sorts exist. Obviously, when the beings on a planet that supports life examine the world around them, they are bound to find that their environment satisfies the conditions they require to exist. The fact of our being restricts the characteristics of the kind of environment in which we find ourselves. (p. 153)

Hawking also discusses and explains things such as geodesics, the forces of nature, and how all chemical and organic elements were originally formed. I recommend reading this book to fully appreciate and understand how everything fits together.

The Grand Design is fascinating. It was not a difficult read, as it had no confusing mathematical equations, yet it was interesting, detailed, and thought-provoking. It definitely peaked my curiosity further in physics and cosmology.

I had half the summer off from school, so naturally I took this opportunity to do some leisure reading. I read some interesting books, all covering my favorite subjects: Neuroscience, psychology, forensics, economics, and science in general.

For nearly every book I read, I take copious notes in Evernote so that I can refer back to the most significant and fascinating things I learn and want to remember. I’ve selected some excerpts from my notes for the books I’ve read the past couple of months, and will post them with reviews for each book.

I enjoy reading. I especially love when my reading prompts further questions and inspires me to study a subject further. I still have a stack of books to tackle before classes start. Yes, I’m a book nerd. :-)

Brent has been participating in a science book club. I love reading books about science; however, going to school in addition to working full time makes it difficult for me to find the time for leisurely reading. Fortunately I had a week of vacation from work scheduled simultaneously with a break between semesters of nursing school. I eagerly picked up this month’s assigned book, Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo from the library.

Author Sean B. Carroll discusses evolutionary developmental biology which is the relationship between embryonic development and evolutionary changes. He explains how “tool kit genes,” a small number of genes which emerged 600 million years ago, are the primary components for building all animals. He discusses how the amazing diversity in the world is controlled by “genetic switches” which instruct these tool kit genes where to act and what to do.

Here is the link to a good video about his book:

Watch the full episode. See more NOVA.

I enjoyed reading “Endless Forms Most Beautiful.” I found some of it difficult to follow, such as when Carroll discussed the complexity of axes and poles within the latitude and longitude of embryos’ coordinate systems. I had to read back over some of these parts several times. Overall it was truly fascinating and thought-provoking. I particularly enjoyed discussing the book with the members of the science book club and hearing different perspectives and insights.

Light, With Intermittant Heat, Likely
Andrew Cohen, The Atlantic, January 1, 2010

I have long been disturbed by the sensationalism and bias of the media in our country. I read this article by Andrew Cohen in The Atlantic.

Cohen states:

The lines between television news and entertainment haven’t just been blurred; they have been obliterated by a terribly divisive and destructive mix: the cynicism and greed of television executives and the concomitant apathy, ignorance, and lack of curiosity on the part of the American people. Which came first? Even if you argue “the people” and not “the media” it still doesn’t excuse the glee with which television news has embraced the fashionable at the expense of the important.

Our family has not had cable or satellite t.v. for years. We don’t watch television and do not miss it. The only reason our girls know anything about celebrities such as Hannah Montana is through their friends. A copius amount of reality shows and celebrity gossip pervades the airways and consumes the minds and lives of the American people. I constantly hear people discussing the latest shows and can’t imagine wasting my time that way. When Tiger Woods’ “indiscretion” is the top news story for weeks, I know our media has failed us.

The proof is in the ratings. Everyone in America should watch Frontline, for example; our nation would be far better off for it. But, instead, everyone in America watches American Idol. As a direct result, hundreds of millions of us can’t name our Supreme Court Justices, or find America on a world map, or list all of the States of the Union (never mind their capitals). In this regard, our public schools have failed us. Our technology has seduced us. And our leaders have encouraged or just capitulated to the descent. We are devolving into a “Know Nothing” nation despite our unprecedented access to first-hand information about events and issues.

As Americans we are fortunate to live in a democracy in which we have the opportunity to vote; it is our right and our responsibility to do so. However it would be better that those who are not educated about the issues do not vote. It is in our country’s best interest for its citizens to understand the way the government works, to research the issues, and to use reason and logic in their decisions.

It’s no wonder most of our politicians are vacuous and venal. They are being elected by people who are too busy or too bored or too lazy to do anything other than cup an ear for the loudest, cleverest, most dramatic sounds emitting from their televisions, computers or PDAs.

Too often people are driven by ignorant passion based on emotion, and guided by confirmation bias. It is imperative that we be open-minded, skeptical, and well-informed. As Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch said, “Talking louder and faster doesn’t make your idea any better.”

Indeed, sadly, we have both the government and the news industry we deserve. Tens of millions of people now form their dogged (unfounded, hysterical, self-defeating, etc.) opinions about politics (and law and governance and history and science) based upon the sly words and dramatic performances of modern-day carnival barkers, false prophets and snake-oil salesmen like Glenn Beck and Lou Dobbs and Bill O’Reilly and Nancy Grace. Like Sinclair Lewis’ irrepressible Elmer Gantry, these charlatans all share the same cynical inside joke: The louder you scream, the more people will watch; the bigger the conspiracy you allege, the more people will believe it; the more outrage you offer up, the more passionate and prolonged will be the response. It’s about entertainment, not news.

Commentators and experts who want to shed light instead of heat–those who are humble or who simply want to be honest about the limitations of their own powers to predict future events– are shoved off to the sidelines and replaced by people who often have nothing to say but who are willing to say it loudly. On my beat, the law beat, I have learned that those who know don’t talk too much and that those who talk too much typically don’t know. Problem is, people watching at home can’t tell which is which, who is who.

Too many kids are being taught what to think, rather than how to think. We need to teach them to think critically at an early age, and to base their opinions and decisions on sound, logical, unbiased facts. I love that our daughters are so inquisitive and skeptical. They are constantly challenging and questioning what they see and hear. We enjoy having discussions, and nothing is off limits. I hope they continue to be guided by what makes sense, rather than simply listening to the “noise.”

I wasn’t accepted into the nursing program at USM. The number of nursing applicants is increasing substantially everywhere. The academic advisor of nursing at USM informed me that the program is highly competitive; they only accepted 90 applicants for this year. Many were already matriculated, which gave them an edge. She said that the applicants who had already taken many of the courses required in the nursing program also had an advantage. Finally, my 4.0 GPA from last semester probably did not bring up my GPA from Ricks College (now BYU Idaho) quite enough. I’ll always regret that I was so lackadaisical back then. I expect to have a 4.0 again for this past semester, which will boost my GPA for the future.

The news disappointed me, of course. But as it prompted me to consider different options, I saw it as an opportunity to pursue a career in science and research. This is something with which I’ve always been fascinated. Sure, I could see myself as a nurse, making good money and having job opportunities everywhere; however I don’t think I would be truly happy. I could be passionate about science and research, and that is ultimately more fulfilling.

I will probably pursue an undergraduate degree in biology. I am interested in toxicology and pathology (possibly with a forensics focus), marine biology, oceanography, and geology. Brent has been incredibly supportive. I appreciate his love and encouragement, and I know he just wants me to be happy. He is especially excited about marine biology. However, he warned me that if I go into pathology and work in a morgue he will NOT come visit me for lunch. :-)

OK, so I need to narrow it down a bit, but I’m excited to go after my dream.

Liberal education is a vanishing ideal in the contemporary West. The aim of liberal education is to produce people who go on learning after their formal education has ceased; who think, ask questions, and know how to find answers when they need them. People who are better informed and more reflective are more likely to be considerate than those who are – and who are allowed to remain – ignorant, narrow-minded, selfish, and uncivil in the profound sense that characterizes so much human experience now.

Since the No Child Left Behind Act has been instituted, it has been counterproductive. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 requires public schools to administer a state-wide standardized test annually to all students, holding them accountable and withholding federal funding if they fail to meet requirements. I am infuriated and bewildered by this law.

Many opponents of NCLB, including teachers and parents, do not like the idea of the testing that is provided in NCLB. They claim that “standardized testing, which is the heart of NCLB accountability, is deeply flawed and biased for many reasons, and that stricter teacher qualifications have exacerbated the nationwide teacher shortage, not provided a stronger teaching force.”

Deborah White

The No Child Left Behind Act requires that every year schools show Adequate Yearly Progress. They are required to increase the number of students who meet the state testing standards yearly. Every American public school is required to file a ‘report card’ giving an account of how many students from every school have met the state standards.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress recently reported in what has become known as the National Report Card, that the No Child Left Behind Act has failed to improve public school achievement since its implementation in 2002. Statistics show there has been little improvement in student math performance and almost no improvement in reading. There has been more improvement at the elementary level than there has been at the middle or secondary levels. The act has not reduced the gap that separates low income and students of color from the rest of the school population. The report card implies that many states have set their standards too low and that little has been done to assure all students qualified and experienced teachers.

Megan Fitzpatrick

Gifted students are being overlooked as many gifted services are being eliminated. They are spending more time reviewing for tests and learning how to take them and less time being challenged. Because of NCLB emphasis on achieving proficiency, curricula does not support advanced needs of these students.

After working in education for 20 years as a teacher, coordinator, and professor, I attended my very first parent-teacher conference as a parent. My daughter attended kindergarten, and I was eager to learn about her performance in school. Her teacher had taught kindergarten for more than 20 years and had a magical way of making her class of 22 five-year-olds feel comfortable and happy. When it came time for our conference, I pulled the primary-sized chair up to the primary-sized desk and sat across from the woman who was my daughter’s first teacher. She calmly explained that my daughter was doing just fine in school, and then proceeded to report how my daughter had performed, based on the state standards identified for kindergartners. She told me that my daughter could count to 10 and that by the end of the year, according to the standards, she would be able to count to 100. I quietly asked if she had ever asked my daughter to count to 100 and was told, “No, that standard isn’t expected until spring.” She went on to explain that I had nothing to worry about because my daughter had met all the standards. In other words, the teacher was communicating that she had done her job. Never mind that my daughter had impressive mathematical skills prior to kindergarten. The teacher had not checked out her existing skills or knowledge. Her job was to address the standards as dictated by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, commonly known as NCLB.

In fact, my daughter could count, add, subtract, and explain fractions and negative numbers among other benchmarks that did not exist in the state standards for kindergartners. She asked me one day, “Would it be a tragedy if a person spent an entire day on the planet and didn’t learn anything new?” I had to agree. As a second grader she continues to ask when she will be given some hard work. However, I wonder how many more years she will still want hard work.

In another school that I visited, the principal had a consultant work with her staff for 2 days on “Strategies for Increasing Your School’s Test Scores.” This consultant explained to a group of concerned inner-city, teachers that they need not worry about the students who scored in the bottom quartile or about the students who scored in the top quartile, because the students in the middle had the power to improve the most. She encouraged the teachers to give these “middle” students the most attention if they wanted to improve their scores. In effect, the district and administration used taxpayer dollars to give the teachers permission not only to leave behind the lowest-scoring children, but also to ignore the highest-scoring students.

Marcia Gentry, Ph.D., associate professor of educational studies and associate director of the Gifted Education Resource Institute, Purdue University.

This is a problem we have been dealing with since my daughters started school. We have been incredibly frustrated with the lack of challenge offered through the education system. Hillary Clinton stated in a rally we attended last year that “we are living in an increasingly personalized, customized world,” and that “education is still an industrial model.” Gentry’s examples provide little hope for students who may need extended, accelerated, or enriched curricula, or for the teachers who might be willing to provide such modifications for their students. NCLB is, in effect, creating a climate of controlled learning and sending a message to administrators, teachers, students, and parents that the school’s job involves teaching to the standards–nothing more and nothing less. When students meet the standards, the schools have met their obligation to “educate.”

Another problem with NCLB is that schools are so concerned with making the grade in math and reading that they are pulling resources away from the arts, physical education and foreign languages to make it happen. But these subjects are vital to the well-rounded student. Art classes, for instance, enhance the creative and innovative thinking that drives entrepreneurs. Studies have found that art classes can help students’ performance in other subjects and could even raise test scores. For instance, dance movement can be used to help a child learn rhythm and meter in reading classes, while singing can enrich the memorization of multiplication tables.

Arizona superintendent of public instruction Tom Horne stated “You cannot run a complex, continent-wide education system through micromanagement by people living in an ivory tower at the Department of Education in Washington.” Perhaps the federal government should step back.

These standardized tests are flawed. We need to consider other factors as to the determining the success of schools, such as graduation rates, turn-over of students going to college, and level of positive community involvement from students. We need to hold the educators responsible. Get rid of teachers’ unions and offer competitive salaries to secure the best teachers.

Perhaps a more appropriate title for the act would be: “No Child Gets Ahead,” “No Child Left Untested,” “All American Children Are Above Average Act,” or “The Act to Help Children Read Gooder.”

Young children need to engage in the process of learning to think and to know how to find and use information when needed. Education involves refining capacities for judgment and evaluation. Learning is only a means to an end – which is understanding – and understanding is the ultimate value in education.

Algebra begins with an unknown.
To solve the problem, work must be shown.
Parentheses are added to make problems look harder,
but you can still do it, because you are much smarter!

The next day you learn coefficients and terms.
You get confused, and say you’ll have to adjourn.
When you get back, you have a new mission:
properties of numbers, using addition!

Exponents and factors are the new step,
but all of a sudden you came down with strep!
The day you return, you feel like trying
properties of something called multiplying!

Dispersing of candy is done very proud;
little do they know, one was missed in the crowd.
The distributive property was explained very well.
By the blank looks on faces, you could certainly tell!

Equations of numbers were taught left and right,
finding the unknown, which was clean out of sight!
Adding the opposite, or something diverse–
every second that passed, the problem got worse!

Much anguish we just could not avoid,
because the amount of homework really got us annoyed!
Solving more equations, ended the frivolity.
No matter what, there was inequality!

Combining like terms, and variables on each side,
searching absolute values, we looked far and wide.
Positive, negative, then drawing a graph!
By the end of the year, I’ll have had enough math!

~Keri A. Hanson, Learning Algebra

I’ve been dedicating a full day to each of my classes (on the days I’m not working).  I don’t look forward to the day I have to do my Algebra.  Dosage calculations is a breeze, English literature is enjoyable, psychology is interesting; and anatomy and physiology is fascinating.

Algebra, well…let’s just say I’ll be glad when it’s over.  Brent was wicked excited about my taking algebra (he actually enjoys math and is very good at it).  He likes to help me when I’m stuck, which is nice.  As for me, I don’t like putting such an obscene amount of time and effort into something so uninteresting and frustrating.  I thought math was supposed to be rational and straight-forward.  So what’s with imaginary and irrational numbers? Next semester I’m taking statistics.  Now there’s a math class for which I am actually excited!