Month: June 2020

Time traveling is easily one of the coolest ideas that are found in many fictions. However, is time travel actually a good goal to pursue in real life? Or does it even do more good than harm? The answer is no, traveling through time is more harmful, due to the many consequences that could happen when you are in the past.

Time traveling is very dangerous. Just stepping on one insect, or killing one animal, can end a whole race and change the future drastically. For example, if you killed a bee, that bee which you killed may have had an important part in pollinating flowers or other plants. This can lead to some plants not being pollinated, and might change future races of plants. The different types of plants can effect the animals consuming it, as it might slightly change their diet. Or it might have an increase or decrease in population, effecting the plants’ environment.

Also, leaving something behind from the future can change the outcome of some events. For instance, if you leave behind a cellphone, people from the past might uncover it, and make more recent or different discoveries. These discoveries can change the future a lot, as humans could have invented flying cars in 2020 if they discovered technology earlier in life.

However, many people believe that time travel is beneficial, since they could change what happened in the past, and maybe avoid something terrible that was about to happen. Still, doing that can create worse problems. For instance, someone went to the past and stopped people from creating plastic. This could help the Earth be more clean, but it can assist the creation of something way worse, such as radioactive, super unclean, and wasteful metal.

Ray Bradbury’s, A Sound of Thunder, takes place in a post-modern world where humans are able to travel through time. A man named Eckels, and a hunting group go back into the past to hunt down a dinosaur. The group quickly finds the dinosaur, and it approaches them at a fast pace. After seeing the dinosaur in person, Eckels becomes afraid and decides to go back. Since Eckels was so afraid, he accidentally abandons the path back to the time machine. He later discovers that when he strayed away from the path, he had stepped on a single butterfly. The group later discovers that this small butterfly changed the entire future drastically. When the group arrives back to their time, they find out that things were different. The new world had different languages, new presidents, new smells, and so much more. Everything in the world had changed because of the hunting group’s small mistakes. Throughout the story, Ray Bradbury adds numerous clues of symbolism to further enhance the plot of the story, and possibly teach a lesson.

One example of symbolism is the frequently occurring thunder. The subject of thunder is introduced several times throughout the story. When the dinosaur approached the group, it came with great flashing thunder. When Travis was about to shoot Eckels, there was also a sound of thunder. Thunder is typically a frightening occurrence, and can represent many different things. In this case, thunder represents danger and death. The first time thunder was brought into the story was when the dinosaur was charging at the hunting group. It was as if the thunder was introducing the deadly dinosaur, hinting to the hunting members that they were facing danger, and possibly death. Bradbury includes a second flash of thunder when Travis was holding a gun to Eckels’ head. At that moment, thunder flashed, hinting that Travis had shot Eckels, leaving him dead. By including thunder throughout the story, Bradbury is able to foreshadow and show the dangers of the hunting group’s choices.

In the story, the path that is taken to the time machine was greatly emphasized. Bradbury even capitalized the words “the Path”, to further demonstrate its significance. The Path was described as narrow, meaning there was no room for even the smallest of mistakes. When Eckels saw the terrifying figure of the Tyrannosaurus Rex, he fled back to the time machine, straying away from the original path. This is another act of symbolism that Bradbury puts into the story. The path that is mentioned in the article can also represent the path that life takes, also known as destiny. Eckels was supposed the follow the correct path back to the time machine. He failed to do so, and because he was so afraid, he strayed from the original path. Altering the path could greatly affect the future, and the same goes for life. The Path is a symbolic message, suggesting that if someone strays apart from their path of life, it could lead to the entire future being changed.

In the book “A Sound of Thunder,” Ray Bradbury tells a story in a future where time travel is possible, and used for leisure as a safari event. The story explains the potential consequences of time travel, and explores the butterfly effect. However, the story could also be used to show the negative effect humans can have on the world.

The problem is that ever since humans started the Industrial Age, they have been polluting the planet with greenhouse gasses, which has caused negative consequences to the environment. Since then humans have not done anything significant to try to fight climate change, partly because nobody really knows where to start. This is a big problem because places that usually contribute the least to climate change are usually the places that are the most heavily affected.

One problem is that nobody really knows who to blame. Western countries point out the China is currently producing the highest amount of greenhouse gasses, While China points out that the greenhouse gasses are produced to keep the people working and surviving, while Western countries also produce high amounts of greenhouse gasses, except those gasses are usually not necessary and are produced by luxury items, such as cars.

Another problem is that there aren’t many good solutions. Clean energy is better for the environment than using fossil fuels, but fossil fuels are still more efficient, and cheaper. This does not really give people lots of incentive to use renewable energy, such as solar panels or windmills. In order to second and third-world countries a better reason why they should use renewable energy as they become more developed, renewable energy must be able to be produced easily.

The Ted talk “The urgent case for antibiotic-free animals” said that farmers should only use very low levels of antibiotics, or not use antibiotics at all, but what can we use instead of antibiotics? One solution, is to use a more balanced meal, like said in the video, and to have cleaner water and living quarters, and to have better hygiene, as the video described. However, there is a problem with that. Farmers are raising the animals for money, and the better meals, living conditions, and hygiene for animals will cost more money, and it is a huge hassle to prepare and do. So as long as antibiotics work, I think farmers will use them, because their goal is to make money.

So I watched this youtube video before, it was by “Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell”, and it was about bacteriophages. They area form of life, that is bacteria’s natural predator. It is everywhere, like germs, and bacteria, and like germs and bacteria, there are many times of bacteriophages. Each type of bacteriophage targets one specific type of bacteria, and its close relatives. The Video said, that now that there are bacteria practically immune to drugs, (superbugs) we can use bacteriophages to kill bacteria. There has already been cases that have been cured with bacteriophages, and according to wikipedia,

“Phage therapy is the use of bacteriophages to treat bacterial infections. This could be used as an alternative to antibiotics when bacteria develop resistance. Superbugs that are immune to multiple types of drugs are becoming a concern with the more frequent use of antibiotics.”

This makes it seem that bacteriophages are the perfect solution to bacteria, especially now that bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics. And they do not harm any human or animal cells, only bacteria. They do this by clamping on to the bacteria, making the bacteria cell make bacteriophage parts, and then assemble the bacteriophage parts, and then it explodes the bacteria, releasing the bacteriophages. Bacteria might adapt to bacteriophages, as life adapts to changes, but bacteriophages will adapt too, since they are also life. And the video also said, that it is proven, that if a bacteria’s resistance to antibiotics rises, it’s resistance for bacteriophages lowers, and the opposite is true, so there is just about nothing to worry about. So a simple and effective alternative (other than solution to superbugs/antibiotic resistant bacteria, are bacteriophages.

Eckels went on a time safari to kill ancient animals in time,

some people might think that this opportunity is sublime.

The year was 2055, in fact it was the future,

the time machine went fast through the past,

Eckels and his two inexperienced companions were probably really scared,

until the fearful ride passed.

Their guide, Mr. Travis, warned they not to stray from the path,

or else they’ll have to feel his wrath.

The little group shot at a Tyrannasorus rex,

even though the planning was quite complex.

When they got back though, the setting was quite bizarre,

a lot of things were different, not what they expected them to be,

nothing was the same inside, not even a single flea!

While Eckels was cleaning his boots, he noticed something shiny,

it was a butterfly, so tender yet so tiny.

Travis was unhappy, because Eckles didn’t obey his order.

he raised his rifle and shot Eckels, in a single sound of thunder.

I didn’t really have a “plan” for this. I just liked how creatively books used it and it’s a fascinating subject.

Wikipedia defines the butterfly effect as “the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state.” Basically, the butterfly effect is when you do something somewhere or sometime, and the consequences of your actions get larger and larger, until something big happens.

In “A Sound of Thunder” a tiny action, stepping in mud, causes a change in which a different president is elected. Everything is fictional, including the presidents, but it shows a great example of the effect.

If you, hypothetically, went fishing, and fished all the fish in a creek, then you might have doomed humanity in the future. Perhaps a bunch of animals relying on that animal for food die, and omnivores who eat that animal for food turn to eat oxygen producing plants or something. That is the example of the butterfly effect.

Many books involving time traveling take use of the butterfly effect. In my opinion, it is a cool concept.

“A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury is a story about how small things can change the future drastically. The protagonist, Eckels is traveling back in time to be able to shoot some dinosaurs. He is warned several times that touching anything he is not supposed to can cause great dangers. Unfortunately, he goes off track and steps on a butterfly. Although this does not seem important, when Eckels returns back to the present, he realizes that a whole nother president has won the election, and the alphabet is all different. The tour guide he went with realizes, too, and shoots Eckels. 

This story teaches us that something may seem insignificant, but it can change the future by a lot. Although I do not believe that time traveling will ever be created, if it were to be, people would need to be careful when going to the past. Another lesson that is taught is when doing something important, make sure to pay close attention to what you are doing and listen to directions. If Eckels had just stayed on the trail instead of being too curious and walking off, the world would not have been changed so much. 

            This short story to me was very interesting and has a lot of what it’s like in a book. The journey all begins when Eckels wanted to get a job and work for the TIME SAFARI, INC. TIME SAFARI, INC. is a really cool place because Eckels got to travel back in time and got to meet animals they did not just meet animals though…. They did a lot more.

As we all know that Eckels and Travis and 2 other hunters. Travel back in time and explore wildlife. Then I thought for a moment why would they travel back in time and look for animals and wildlife? This question will get answered in a moment. Alright back to the animals. When they were walking they spotted a dinosaur they were wanting to kill with guns. Well I know that sounds harsh but these people didn’t like animals. There were multiple dinosaurs but they had to find the one with a blob of red paint on it. So then they wouldn’t get the wrong one.

When they found the right dinosaur they immediately started to get scared soon after a while waiting there Eckels got really scared and accidentally broke a rule they were not supposed to do. The rule was to always stay in the middle of the track “road”. Eckels ran away near the bushes and hid. While he was “hiding” the other hunters were quietly approaching the dinosaur when the dinosaur saw them and the leader said “FIRE!!!!” and the guns went  POW BANG and soon the dinosaur fell down and was very injured with rips and holes.

         When they traveled back to their original time someone found a butterfly under Eckels shoe and started to act a bit scary and then the problem came he got out his gun and was aiming for Eckels. They both were really surprised and so darkness filled Eckels eyes…….. He was now gone.

This story was very cool and interesting. Some thoughts I have are that Eckels was a very innocent person and was somewhat very scared for a lot of events. But there are some very different things that i noticed. One is why would the man kill Eckels for having a dead butterfly under his shoe? That one part was just very confusing. Well anyways that was all of my thoughts in the short story we ready “A Sound of Thunder”.

A Sound of Thunder is about five Time travelers going to hunt a Tyrannosaurus Rex. This group of travelers walk on the Path to avoid ruining any animals, plants, or history. The Path is an antigravity metal path that guides them to where they shoot the dinosaur. Eckels, one of the travelers, is astonished by the size of Tyrannosaurus Rex and goes back to the Time Machine to hide. On his way back, he accidentally slips off the Path and steps on a piece of mud and kills a butterfly. When the group heads back home, the man behind the desk changes, and the elected president is a different one than before.

I think the story is trying to show that even a small thing can make a big difference. For example, the butterfly changed who became president, a sign’s wording, a person’s job, etc. Also, when one chooses to disobey one’s parent, one may become untrustworthy, and when one is obedient and truthful, one will have a good reputation.

In this Ted Talk Leon Marshal talks about how antibiotics affect people and animals. I think that he says a lot of things about how antibiotics were used on animals. He talks about how farmers used antibiotics on farm animals to get them to live longer.

I think that getting farm animals to live longer can be good but, using antibiotics is not the way to go. You can get them to live longer just by providing them with nutrients and good hygiene as said in the Ted Talk. Farmers might have used to give food to animals that would not be healthy but full with fat. Since the food wasn’t nutritious they would have to use antibiotics to get the animals to live longer. Also, the farmers might have not cleaned the animals’ living spaces. This would cause the animals to have bad hygiene, and again get sick.

A ton of antibiotics are used for house pets. These pets have to use antibiotics, and the antibiotics might harm the owner. Again, if the owner provided the pet with very good and nutritious food the pets wouldn’t have to get the antibiotics. Even if the food is more expensive it is probably better than to get a ton of antibiotics.

I think that there are many ways to keep people and animals nutritious but giving them a lot of antibiotics is not the play. You can feed them good food and keep them clean instead of constantly using antibiotics.