Book 1 Post 2

I want to be completely honest with anyone who reads this post so in complete honesty, I haven't finished the book. BUT, the prompt never said I had to finish the book. I checked and see if it said anything about finishing and it didn't so hopefully, I wasn't careless and skipped details. Anyways, I am about halfway through and Mike Brown, whether intentionally or unintentionally, is a hilarious writer. I often found myself chuckling whenever he talked about his planetary discoveries not panning out the way he had hoped. 

I also enjoyed how he embedded his personal life into his work life. His days at the Palomar Observatory and time spent pouring over countless photos sparked an interest within me so much so that I ended up looking up how far the Palomar Observatory is. Though I can't do any astronomical research of my own, I did entertain the idea of going to a remote location to see the vast sky above at night. Reading this book reminded me of that time when my cousin, older brother, and I drove back from Yosemite at night and saw the beautiful sky laden with stars, planets, and millions of other objects. It was undisturbed by the light-polluted cities and I found myself thinking about that night whenever Brown spoke about using telescopes to photograph the sky and track planetary movements.

I got to learn a lot from this book and I expect to learn a whole lot more as I move towards finishing it soon. Hopefully, I'll be done reading it by the time I have to make my random blog post which is in a few days if I am not mistaken. I just took a look at the syllabus and it says that it's due on the twenty-third so I'm not leaving myself a lot of time to finish this book. If I am not done by that date, I'll probably have an update on where I am and will finish by the second random blog post. I figured that I would be honest and have some genuine things to say about the book rather than pretending that I read it completely and only give generic remarks. 

Going back to the book, I thought the process of discovering plants would be a lot more complex than how Brown explains it. I am sure it's way more complex but taking a photo and comparing if a thing had moved would probably be how one would identify if the sky was changing in any meaningful way. I am close to finishing my Computer Science degree at USC and I'll be graduating in May I also never really thought about how related CS and Astronomy are. Brown credits a lot of his astronomical work being made simple due to computers and writing programs to simplify his life. I suppose that all science and engineering disciplines are related to each other in some form or another and they all come together to form a field of study. Because of this, I was able to relate to Brown feeling dismayed whenever one of his discoveries did not live up to his expectations as I have felt that countless times whenever I set out to do an assignment. I am trying to relate my struggle to astronomers and I am sure that they are not even on the same level.

Anyway, I am excited to read on in this book and hopefully, I'll have more cool things to share about it. I can't wait to read more about his daughter and his planetary discoveries. 

Comments

  1. Anders MarshallFebruary 22, 2024 at 11:39 PM

    Hi Ramneek! I read the same book as you and absolutely loved it. Brown's writing styles and the way he explains the universe is so unique and captivating. I especially love the section about his daughter.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ChristianFebruary 27, 2024 at 4:11 PM

    Hi Ramneek, it is very interesting to hear your connection between anatomy and computer science. It is not something that I had thought about either, but I see the connection and think that there are so many other fascinating applications to a CS degree.

    ReplyDelete

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