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| "Curiosity" (XIX-XX Century) by Eugene de Blaas |
This question/challenge has four parts. You must complete all 4 parts to get full credit. All parts should be combined in one comment.
First: identify something that you are both ignorant about and curious about. Don't include an "area" that is so specific that you can quickly find the answer with a 2-second internet search (like "What is the capital of Denmark?"). Feel free to choose an area that doesn't have a clear or simple "answer" (Grant's broad examples like "art" and "financial markets" would be examples).
Second: After you've identified the areas, do some research about one (or more) of them and teach the rest of us something surprising and significant that you learned as a result of the process. 100 words maximum for this part.
Third: Let us know how much time you spent researching this area (for this assignment) and where you found your answer. Ideally, you'll spend more than 5 minutes on it, but you're not expected to spend more than an hour, say.
Fourth: What other questions did your research leave you curious about?
To start, I am ignorant about multiple things-- not just the one I am writing over (a few are war history-- which my boyfriend loves--, lots of sciences such as chemistry, anatomy, physics, and more-- because I never had a teacher help me learn appropriately and didn’t have the confidence to try and teach myself--, social interactions with people my own age, and finances-- I penny-pinch to a fault--, etc.). Another area that I am ignorant about is coding, more specifically coding in C#. My boyfriend is pretty fluent in this language, but whenever he speaks about it I am completely baffled. I don’t want to learn the language, but I want to know how it began and what is expected of this language in the future.
ReplyDeleteAccording to C# Station, this language is one of the oldest, common, and easier languages to learn (Friedman When was c# created? A brief history). Microsoft created C# for their own company’s usage (Friedman When was c# created? A brief history). When C# first started it looked like Java and was laking generics (Erikdietrich The history of c# - c# guide). From Microsoft’s history with C#, more and more features look to be added, and the language is adapting to different futuristic types of technology to keep the language modern and a general-purpose language.
All in all, this prompt only took about thirty minutes of research. I don’t believe I ever realized how quickly I could gain a basic understanding of a topic that I know nothing about before. This prompt made me more interested in other languages such as HTML, Java, and other C languages like C++ and C. Honestly, I don’t want to spend enough time to know all of the languages by heart, but little tidbits of information are very interesting to look into.
Sources cited by order used:
Friedman, Janice. "When Was C# Created? A Brief History." C# Station. 18 Mar. 2020. Web. 10 Aug. 2021.
Erikdietrich, Microsoft. "The History of C# - C# Guide." C# Guide | Microsoft Docs. 18 June 2021. Web. 10 Aug. 2021.
Malorie larman
I am simultaneously fascinated and stumped by architecture. I can vaguely understand how malls and houses stand upright, but skyscrapers and cell towers look like you could topple them with just a push of your finger. I did some research online and found out that skyscrapers have several design features that most people either don't know about or completely overlook.
ReplyDeleteA skyscraper is made from concrete and steel, and it gets the best of both of these materials. The steel keeps the skyscraper from stretching, and the concrete prevents the building from getting compressed on any one side. In addition, the odd angles and shapes of these massive structures aren't just for artistic design. They actually help to redirect the pummeling winds found at high altitudes. The most surprising thing I found was that skyscrapers are BUILT to sway, and the videos online have more tension than any movie I've seen in the past few years.
I spent around 15 minutes looking for the information to write this response. However, I've spent another 45 minutes watching videos of buildings swaying in earthquakes and high winds. I found my information through a couple of architectural articles online.
After thinking about how skyscrapers stay standing, I've strangely begun to wonder how tall animals like giraffes and brontosauruses, who notably lack foundations and concrete skeletons, can stand and walk around.
Links:
https://www.punctualabstract.com/2018/11/14/skyscraper/
https://www.npr.org/2011/11/07/141858484/how-the-worlds-tallest-skyscrapers-work
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qh9_RS1ebGQ
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ReplyDeleteAn area I tend to be pretty ignorant yet curious about is ceramics. I’ve had enough experience with them to know I enjoy learning about the process, but not enough to say I am anything but still ignorant, especially of the sheer amount of history behind the subject. After doing some research, I’ve found that the pottery wheel was invented as early as 4000 BCE in Mesopotamia, which enabled people to take pottery from a necessity to an art form. While pottery was prevalent in almost every single civilization, many civilizations had different uses and traditions for the art form. For example, ancient Egyptians used ceramic jars to hold organs after the embalming process, due to the belief that the dead may need them in the after life. Japanese clay art was traditionally fired in wooden kilns called ‘anagama’ which would stay lit for as long as a week while the pieces were left for days to cool. There are many different types of ceramic processes, all of which are affected by the type of clay used, the firing process, the chemical composition of the glazes and the type of decoration which is what makes it such an affording art form. The other questions my research left me curious about pertains a lot to the chemical aspects of glazes, and how the ceramic process has been modernized over the last several hundred years. I spent about 20 minutes reading about ceramics, but I spent another 30 watching mugs get hand made from start to finish.
ReplyDeleteSources cited in order:
“5 Awesome Things You Probably Didn't Know ABOUT POTTERY.” Figure 8 Ink, 27 July 2020, figure8ink.com/5-awesome-things-probably-didnt-know-pottery/.
“Brief History of Ceramics and Glass.” The American Ceramic Society, 28 Sept. 2018, ceramics.org/about/what-are-engineered-ceramics-and-glass/brief-history-of-ceramics-and-glass.
YouTube, 7 Feb. 2021, youtu.be/zw8rN3x5iLA.
I've never been particularly good at math and numbers, so I've always avoided discussing or learning about topics relating to finances. A lot of the time it just doesn't make any sense to me. So, I decided to research the stock market, more specifically why the stock market is so affected by us, and other outside factors.
ReplyDeleteAfter doing some research, I learned that the stock market is so affected by us, because it is made up of our money. When rumors, natural disasters, or economic instability faces people, they sell their shares to protect their money or themselves. When people are selling a lot of a stock, the demand decreases and in turn so does the price. This is exactly what a stock market crash is.
I spent about 15 minutes doing research on this. For many people this was probably more common knowledge, but I find it so interesting how something that is so influential and important can also be so influenced by other factors. I want to do more research on the stock market and how companies recover from stock market crashes.
Sources:
https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-a-stock-market-crash
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4469144
First: Geology
ReplyDeleteSecond: Quartz can produce electricity when put through “mechanical stress”, like vibration or pressure, through an effect called piezoelectric. This effect is commonly used to power things like watches and clocks that require a minimal power output. Anytime you see the word “quartz” on a watch face, that’s why (maybe).
It’s first practical use was during world war one powering sonar. The process required a thin layer of quartz between two sheets of steel The energy emitted by the device was a high pitch noise that was used to track ships.
Eventually people figured out how to synthetically produce crystals that had a much higher piezoelectric output than anything naturally forming and were eventually able to invent everyday technology that incorporated this form of electricity. Technology you’d probably recognize are remotes, lighters, and various radar systems. They also have a major presence in modern day semiconductors: quite possibly the most revolutionary thing in the modern world.
No matter how much research I do I still can’t fully understand how this works. Neat
three: multiple hours
four: What other strange rocks have anomalous properties like this
-Elias
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