Bryson Reading

Pg. 2- "The bad news is that atoms are fickle and their time of devotion is fleeting-fleeting indeed. Even a long human life adds up to only about 650,000 hours. And when that modest milestone flashes past, or at some other point thereabouts, for reasons unknown your atoms will shut you down, silently dissemble, and god off to be other things. And thats it for you."

This passage struck me because Bryson broke life and death down so such simple terms. It truly makes our time seem short. 650,000 hours doesnt seem like a long time at all, and when we die our atoms just move on. This passage made me think a lot about the role of atoms in our lives. How can atoms make up so many different things? They even make up so many different body parts due to the different kind of cells. When you die and begin disintegrating does everything break back down into atoms? And then what happens? How do they know where to go? How do they even get there? This reading left me with many questions that are aspects of our human makeup I had never thought about.

Another thing that struck me is that atoms arent alive. I knew that, but it caused me to think about our existence. We are made from cells, cells are alive; cells are made from molecules I believe, and molecules are made from atoms, which arent alive. Where does life begin? How can we be made up of something that's never alive?

Essentially, this article left me mind boggled, especially about the role of atoms in our existence. There were several new ideas and thoughts that caused me to think a lot about our world, the big bang and what it is made up of.