Flags of our Fathers by James Bradley

            Flags of our Fathers, by James Bradley, is a non-fiction tale about the flag-raising at Iwo Jima during World War II. The story is written from the perspective of one of the flag raiser’s son (the author). James Bradley, son of John Bradley, went to each of the Iwo Jima survivors and had detailed interviews with them in order to come up with this accurate piece of lit. The physical descriptions of the environment and the emotions of the soldiers are phenomenal. You receive actual quotes from them which make it seem a lot more real. As a World War II history lover, I appreciate the inside view and personal perspective this book brings. This story talks of the great accomplishments on Iwo Jima as well as the unfortunate tragedies. As John Bradley himself says in the story, “The real heroes are the ones who never made it back.”

            The main point of the story was to bring to light all the experiences of the wonders of the Iwo Jima flag-raising. The highlighted theme would be strongly related to John Bradley’s most famous above quote. Heroes are not defined by accomplishments, but by their sacrifices. Many elements come into play to back up that theme. One element is imagery. James Bradley did an excellent job of providing visual information about the volcanic island of Iwo Jima. On the island, the ground is all made of volcanic ash and the Japanese used it to dig tunnels and caverns underground all throughout the island with holes all around so they could pop out at any time. On several occasions they would sneak out and grab hostages to take underground into the caverns to be tortured. John Bradley even knew of such a soldier. He eventually died. This was part of the sacrifice he made joining the military is that giving your life for the good of your country is an honor. This was in accord with the perspective of the interviewed survivors and supports the acclaimed central theme.

            Overall, I found the book to be quite fascinating. A great deal of it proved to be a bit tedious but some of the explanations of the practical hour-by-hour nights on Iwo Jima were incredible and the fact that he was able to interview the actual flag-raisers was impressive and made the work that much more interesting. Even the actual battles were detail filled. Some nights they would be sleeping and get fired on by the Japanese out of nowhere. It was incredibly precarious situation on the island; not to mention countless bombing and mines placed on the island. It was a long strive to the top of the mountain and this work does a great job of putting you into the mindset of the soldiers who lived it. Each one of the characters had a very different background and all the information overload can leave you a bit confused; however, it is a fascinating read nonetheless.

Lightning = Usable Electricity?

Today I read an interesting article which reminded me of a talk in Physics class this year. Their ideas were quite intriguing. It claimed that perhaps there was somehow the possibility to capture and store Lightning as usable electricity..


As most of us know, electricity from lightning contains incredibly high voltage and current and if harnessed could potentially power a town for a month. The problem is, the only way to store raw electrons would be to use a capacitor rather than chemical ions such as in batteries. An example of a capacitor used in large scales like this would be in electric cars. Their batteries function much like a capacitor.


Such high volts of electricity would destroy the capacitor causing it to arc or even blow up at that extremity. The capacitor would have to be the size of Wyoming and several miles high. Inefficient.


So, in response to this, perhaps there are other ways of harnessing the power.

I have an idea:


Since cloud-to-ground lightning gets dissipated and neutralized when it hits the ground in the form of heat, this heat could then be used to melt a metal underground. This would then boil some water. The high kinetic energy of the convection currents happening within the water would then spin a turbine. (As we all know is an electromagnet - as discovered by Nikolai Tesla) This would produce electricity. A lot of energy comes from lightning which could melt a lot of metal, boil a lot of water, spin a lot of turbines or a giant turbine, and maybe produce a lot of electricity?


So to conclude my post I'll say this:

Do I think lightning capture is plausible? No. Not with today's technology. Perhaps in the future we can build a capacitor to store the electrons from lightning or make hydro power more efficient. But not today.

Educational Restraint - Why Einstein was so Smart

Hello!

Welcome to my blog. To introduce my future posts, I'd like to start with this:

Today's educational system is flawed. Teachers claim to promote individual thought, but the truth is, the way the curriculum is structured as well as discipline and tradition, individual thought is discouraged. Students are forced to learn the "required material" rather than learn about things that interest them.

This is where Einstein was different. Albert Einstein struggled through school as he felt it did not apply to him. He spent most of his time thinking about other things such as the laws of physics and the grasping of reality. He failed his first acceptance exam to the school he wanted to go to and many people told him he "wouldn't amount to anything." Claims like this seem humorous looking back at Einstein's younger years compared to his accomplishments.

Einstein not only rebelled through the school's learning system, his brain was also structurally different than a regular person. Certain sections of his brain were missing which allowed other parts of his brain, such as the parietal lobe - the section that deals with math and physics, to grow bigger. His brain functioned very well for the purpose it was used. Many wonder whether if it was genetic mutation or if it was caused by intellect training - the fact that he spent all his time on math and physics made this section of his brain proportionally larger while other sections were unneeded.

To wrap it up, Einstein was a very unique individual, and I didn't even get into the reasons for why he's famous. Perhaps that will come in a future post; Stay tuned for more about the interesting world around us!