My capstone project looked wildly different than my peers. More of a show, I started off by providing scenes into how music was intertwined into my graduate program. The last scene was me, at my querencia, singing a duet with mountains.
Literature Appetizer: The Chemistry of Alchemy by Cobb, Fetterolf, and Goldwhite
My sense of wonder with chemistry didn't start in the classroom, or with the help of a teacher. It all started because I was bored.
I'm roaming around my 7th grade school library, bored out of my mind. I was supposed to pick a new book to read, but since I hated reading I was haphazardly taking books off and skimming them to find an easy read. When I opened one of those books, I saw a strange and wonderful picture full of strange symbols and images. I saw my first alchemical image.
Literature Appetizer: Living in Denial by Kari Marie Norgaard
Fact: Our average global temperature is increasing at a very rapid rate.
Fact: This trend started to happen around the industrial revolution.
Fact: Therefore, humans have played a serious role in our global climate change.
We can argue over specific numbers and details, but you can't argue with the facts above. Even though they have been given a lot of air time, 'climate skeptics' are generally seen as misinformed at best and malicious toward truth at worst. Even though America has the highest percentage of climate skeptics per capita, Kari Marie Norgaard identifies a even larger threat: climate deniers.
The Chemistry of Popcorn
About a month ago my roommate, Tyler, and I were going to sit down and watch a movie. Since she was getting the movie ready, it was my task to get snacks from the store. What do you have to have during movies? Popcorn!
Except that we don't have a microwave...I had lived my entire life either on movie popcorn, made with fancy machines, or the microwavable bags. So in the store when I saw a bag of unpoped popcorn, I thought "I'm great in the kitchen, how hard could making popcorn be?"
Literature Appetizer: Moby-Duck by Donovan Hohn
In January of 1992, a large shipping container traveling from Hong Kong to the US capsized in a massive storm. This happens, but what was unique was one of the items being shipped: 28,800 bath toys. Our global currents sent these toys on a journey bigger than they could imagine.
When the first ducks were being found, there was little story about them. But as more and more kept appearing, media and the populous started to organize and share their findings. Beachcombers searched for the 'next big cache' of ducks. Environmentalists wanted to use this in court to stop shipping across the oceans. Oceanographers analyzed the data to determine how our ocean currents actually move.
Making Metallic Hydrogen
In the middle of lazy afternoon phone conversation with my grandfather, he says "Did you know they just made metallic hydrogen?" I know this is a very rare thing for me to say, but I was speechless. Of course I knew that hydrogen could become a solid at cold enough temperatures, but that is scary close to absolute zero. It never occurred to me that it could, even in a solid state, resemble anything like a metal.
Just typing 'metallic hydrogen' into Google brings up articles like this: Hydrogen turned into metal in stunning act of alchemy that could revolutionise technology and spaceflight. Bold claim, as the media is ought to do. And of course, just a few hours later, articles started popping up refuting the claim.
But digging a bit further, the search for metallic hydrogen goes much further back than a few days ago. It goes back to Wigner and Huntington.
I Hate Protesting
OK hate is a strong word. Maybe I should have titled this "I feel very uncomfortable in a protesting environment." That just doesn't have the same ring to it though...
My family taught me many valuable things, but being actively involved in politics was not one of them. Both my parents vote every four years for president, make a comment every now and then on the political climate, but mostly let others deal with 'politicking.'
Literature Appetizer: American Nations by Colin Woodard
Colin Woodard suggests that America has never been united. Rather, eleven distinct nations have been fighting for power since europeans first set foot on this side of the world. In his book American Nations Woodard dives into the history and conflicts that these cultural nations have.
Literature Appetizer: Bug Music by David Rothenberg
Humans have taken pride over the millennia of our achievements; Buildings, ideas, even going to the moon! But what if music, generally seen as a human created form of self expression, has actually been going on for millions of years on the planet before humanity ever left Africa? What if, for example, the intervals that bugs in China created inspired in some way the specific music theory in that area?
