Sam Bacurin
AP English
8/7/13
My
Observations, on everything
I like to think of myself as a very scientifically minded
person. Therefore I have a very literal perception of things. Things like how
the universe was created. Around 13 billion years ago the universe expanded
from a single infinitely small and infinitely dense ball of energy. It expanded
to a very large size in a matter of milliseconds. It expanded outward in every
direction from there on. Several hundred thousand years passed by before
anything interesting happened. All the mass in the universe was collecting at
this time, gathered up by gravity. At time when a sufficient amount of gases
and elemental particles became dense enough they came together to form the
earliest star. This happened all over the rapidly growing universe until there
were many stars, all of them fusing hydrogen together for fuel. There, in the
core of the stars, were the basic building blocks of the universe forming. Heavier and heavier elements formed. Other celestial bodies were born
amongst the residual space matter. Millions of years passed. The earliest stars
grew old; some of them neared the end of their lifespans. Many died, often in
violent explosions called supernovas which fused heavier elements together like
gold and lead and spread out into the cosmos. Similar events continued for many billions of years until Sol, or the sun was formed. In
the beginning of the solar system there were many planets, many more than the 8
that exist today. None of them, not even the one that would be earth, harbored
suitable conditions for life to exist. Early Earth was a violent volcanic
wasteland, where only the heartiest forms of life could thrive. Eons passed by
and primordial Earth began to cool. Water collected in Earth’s basins and the
most basic forms of life sprang up. Microscopic singled celled forms of life
that evolved into larger and more complex versions of life. More millions of
years passed and creatures that somewhat resembled modern humans were hunting
packs of animals, following them wherever they went. This pursuit of food leads
to the early humans spreading about the world. Only a hundred thousand years
later modern humans thrive. A blink of an eye in the universe timeline and the
human species has come so far.
The whole universe came about in a tiny amount of time
but it took 13 billion years to get to where it is now. A lot of this
information is canon to the scientific community, only the outliers of it
debate this. The large amounts of speculation and questioning come from the
question, “what came before it?”. There are endless answers to this question,
but no one really knows. Many people believe a deity created it all. Some say
it was a single one that did it, in fact many do believe it was one that did
it, a God or gods perhaps. I personally don’t believe that anything created the
universe. If I believed that a higher power created the universe, then that
begs the question, who or what created the higher power. That logic would keep
going on into infinity asking, if a higher power created the higher power, then
who created that higher power. Because of that, I keep things simple by
eliminating the higher power.
Who am I then? I am a knife maker and a cyclist. I boast about my
Ironically, what become a large portion of this essay is not something I use to identify myself with. In fact, most people who read this will be surprised to learn that I am an atheist. My hobbies are what I use to identify myself with. I am not a great person who can be harsh due to my pandering nature. At the
same time I can be helpful since I read a lot and work hard so I can impress people and try to become an engineer.
No comments:
Post a Comment