The Saddest Day :: essays research papers

It was one of those superb days that makes you forget all your problems and makes you grateful that you are alive. The sun was beaming down scintillating honeyed rays to the earth, turning everything they touched into gold. The wind was a light blowing breeze, like angels breathing softly upon the world. The birds were singing their most beautiful songs turning the trees into radiant symphony orchestras. The crystal clear sky must have transformed into a mirror over the Caribbean Sea, for it was of the most beautiful shades of blue I had ever laid eyes on. The leaves were blowing around on the ground, already changed to fall colors of browns, yellows, and even pinks. The air smelled refreshing like a splash of cold water on your face when you awake in the morning, and crispy like an autumn leaf. Indeed, it was a glorious day, but you should never judge a book by its cover. As I stepped out of the house that morning, I took a deep breath and let the morning air fill my lungs. I was off to school, my Dad was waiting impatiently for me in the car. Beep! Beep! I heard the horn blow, echoing off the brick wall of my apartment. I hurried along to the car, barely jumping in before my Dad started to pull away. "You need to get ready a little faster you know." He said to me with what seemed to be a permanent stern look on his face. I wasn't going to argue with him today. It was too splendid out to fight, so I just nodded my head and smiled. I went through the day feeling great. School seemed as if it had zoomed by and before I knew it I was walking home. The weather was still the same, if not better by now. As I passed little children on my way home I smiled thinking about when I was little how great it was then. The worst thing in the world then was a scraped knee, and now it was a broken heart. As I neared my house I got a chill down my spine, like a cold gush of air when you open the freezer. I didn't think anything of it at the time. It was just a chill and I got them all the time. But now I know to be scared when I get one of

The Worst Hard Times

The Worst Hard Times Study Guide Chapters 3-5 I. PROMISE: The Great Plowup, 1901-1930 Chapter 3: Creating Dalhart 1. Vocabulary (choose 3 that you want to make sure you know): sharecropping (p. 52), optimism (p. 53), factory farms (p. 53), hooch (p. 54), landlord (56), cannon fodder (57) 2. Make a list of all the names. Who are they? What are their stories in connection with Dalhart and the times told of in this book? 3. Make a list of all the different ways the grass of the prairie is referred to; also keep a list of all the ways the land and the dust are referred to. 4. What were the ways people hoped to make money around Dalhart?Which were successful and which were not? 5. Who were the ‘girls’? What did they do for the town? (Read between the lines. The actual words on the page are not the answer to this question. ) 6. Who were the people (US origins? European origins? ) migrating to the High Plains? What were they looking and hoping for? Chapter 4: High Plains Deutsc h 1. Vocabulary (choose 5 you want to make sure you know): glut (p. 59), wheat mounds (p. 59), bushel (p. 59), debts, naked (p. 60), gamble (p. 60), swamping (p 60), defiant (p. 61), pungent (p. 62), potent (p. 62), turkey red (p. 62), thistle (p. 62), pacifists (p. 2), manifest destiny (p. 64), yeomen (p. 66) 2. When wheat prices went down and then down again, what did farmers do? What do you think of this? 3. Add to your list of all the names. What are their stories in connection with the area mentioned and the times told of in this book? 4. What is the family event in this chapter? Like other chapters, Egan begins telling this story, but then he goes to other events. What is the point of the story he tells us in this chapter? 5. What are the similarities and differences between the story of Russia and the High Plains? 6. What is the point of George Ehrlich family story?What particular experiences did he and his family have? What were the particular characteristics of George and h is culture? 7. P 61: ‘make fun of;’ ‘call them in for questioning;’ ‘refuse them entry;’ ‘mock.. ;’ ‘laugh at;’ ‘deride. ’ What is the subject of and object of these verb phrases? What do you think about this? 8. What countries did people come from to settle the High Plains? Support each place with names that Egan tells us. 9. What is the point of Egan telling us about the immigrants? What did they bring to the High Plains? 10. What does this mean, â€Å"Some railroads practiced selective ethnic shopping†?Chapter 5: Last of the Great Plowup 1. Vocabulary(choose 3 you want to make sure you know): stock market (p. 73), shares (p. 74), foreclosure (p. 79), warrants (p. 78), mule trains (81), tumble weed (p. 84) 2. When wheat prices went down and then down again, what did farmers do? What do you think of this? (I know this was in Ch 4†¦but what is different or the same in this chapter? ) 3. Althoug h most Americans did not own stocks, they had land and wheat. What happened to the prices of wheat and land after the stock market crash in 1929? 4. There was a peculiar kind of storm. What was it ? What did the storms do? How did people react? . Is President Hoover concerned about food? Why not? 6. How do farmers try to beat the banks in foreclosure sales in Boise City? 7. How much was Hazel paid for her teaching job? Where did the money come from to pay her? 8. What activity did Ike Osteen observe when he was playing at the ghost church? 9. Egan says that Prohibition was a â€Å"moneymaker and job creator† (p. 82). What is he telling us? 10. How were black men treated in Dalhart? Give an example. 11. What was going on with the wheat? What idea did President Hoover reject? What did farmers do in response? 12. â€Å"A new decade was dawning† †¦. What does this refer to?

What Happens When Neutron Stars Collide

There are some really weird denizens of the cosmic zoo out there in space. Youve probably heard about colliding galaxies and magnetars and white dwarfs. Have you ever read about  neutron stars? Theyre some of the weirdest of the weird — balls of neutrons packed together very tightly.   They have incredible gravitational field strength, plus strong magnetic field. Anything getting close to one would be changed forever. When Neutron Stars Meet! Anything that gets near the neutron star is subject to its strong pull of gravity. So, a planet (for example) could be torn apart as it nears such an object. A nearby star loses mass to its neutron star neighbor. Given that ability to rip things apart with its gravity, imagine what it would be like if two neutron stars met! Would they blow each other part? Well, maybe.   Gravity would obviously play a huge role as they get closer together and eventually merge. Beyond that, astronomers are still trying to figure out exactly what would happen in such a case (and what would cause one).    What occurs during such a collision depends on the mass of each of the neutron stars. If theyre smaller than about 2.5 times the mass of the Sun, theyll merge and create a black hole in a very short amount of time. How short? Try 100 milliseconds! Thats a tiny fraction of a second.   And, because you have a tremendous amount of energy released during the merger, a gamma-ray burst would be produced. (And, if you think thats a huge explosion, imagine what might happen when black holes themselves collide!) Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs): Bright Beacons in the Cosmos Gamma-ray bursts are just what the name sounds like: bursts of high-energy gamma rays from an intensely energetic event (such as a neutron star merger). They have been recorded all over the universe, and astronomers are still finding likely explanations for them, including in neutron star mergers.   If the neutron stars are larger than 2.5 times the mass of the Sun, you get a different scenario: there will be whats called a neutron star remnant.   No GRB is likely to take place. So, for right now, the conclusion is that you will either get a neutron star remnant or a black hole. If a black hole emerges from the collision, then it will be signaled by a gamma-ray burst.   One other thing: when neutron stars merge, gravity waves are formed, and those can be detected with such instruments as the LIGO facility (short for Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory), built for to look for just such events in the cosmos.    Forming Neutron Stars How do they form? When very massive stars many times more massive than the Sun  explode as supernovae, they blast a LOT of their mass to space. Theres always a remnant of the original star left behind. If the star is massive enough, the leftovers are still very massive and they can shrink down to become a stellar black hole.   Sometimes theres not quite enough mass left, and the remains of the star crush down to form that ball of neutrons — a compact stellar object called a neutron star. It can be quite small — perhaps the size of a   small town a few miles across.   Its neutrons are crushed together very tightly, and theres no way of knowing whats happening inside.   Gravity Rules A neutron star is so massive that if you tried to lift a spoonful of its material, it would weigh a billion tons.  As with any other massive object in the universe, a neutron star has an intense gravitational pull. Its not quite as strong as a black holes, but it can definitely have an effect on nearby stars and planets (if theres anything left after the supernova explosion). They also have very strong magnetic fields, and often also give off bursts of radiation that we can detect from Earth. Such noisy neutron stars are also called pulsars. Given all that, neutron stars definitely rate as one of the top types of weird objects in the universe! Their collisions are among the most powerful events we can imagine.