Violent Storms Summary
By Nathan Pendergraft
Chapter One “The Solar Connection”, what was talked about in the chapter was the
make up of the universe, and the early life of the universe. The solar nebula was a star the
exploded 5 billion years ago, which is called a supernova. The debris from the explosion
traveled for 10,000 years, and collided with other galactic matter that formed into a cloud of
gas which is called a nebula. The Nebula had rotation and this force is called angular
momentum. This means that the property of spinning body which can’t be created or destroyed
but can only be transferred from one body to another. The sun is an ordinary star compared to
size. The Sun is in the Milky Way Galaxy, 28,000 light years away from the center. The Sun is
the support of life on Earth. The Earth completed most of its growth about 4.6 billion years ago.
The Earth’s core has a inner core, outer core, lower mantle, transition zone, Asthenosphere,
and crust, are all layers of the Earth.
Chapter 2 “What is a Gas”. The Earth has many layers that make up the Atmosphere.
The first to discover on the nature of air were the ancient Greek philosophers. Some
philosophers argued that air was the chief elements of nature from which all substances were
made of. The most famous of the Greek philosophers, was Aristotle. He changed these ideas
and included the notion that one element could change from one to another, for ex. water to
air when boiled. He also argued against the existence of a vacuum, stating that nature abhors a
vacuum and he believed outer space had to be filled with air or some other type of gas or
substance. Aristotle also said that air is weightless, and a five pound weight would fall five times
faster than a one pound weight. This is an incorrect theory of his. Galileo proved that air did
indeed have weight because compressed air weighed more than the same volume of normal
air. Galileo made a vacuum by pulling down on a plug inserted in a inverted tube of water,
which produced a void space above the water at the top of the vacuum what Galileo is most
popular for is his gravity experiment. The first atmosphere was composed of the original
hydrogen and helium left over form the solar nebula. During the Earth’s first billion years, the
light from the Sun was as weak as it is now on Mars. The Sun was much more active then, but
with giant solar flares reaching million of miles into space. A strong solar wind swept the light
gases of the early atmosphere out into space, which left the Earth in a near vacuum, which is
like the Moon is now. Without atmosphere and oceans to distribute the Sun;s energy, the
surface of the Earth baked at the temperature of molten iron during the day and froze to lower
than -100 degrees at night. For Earth’s living organisms the Atmosphere is a very much needed
for them to survive.
Chapter 3 Stormy Weather: It is common to many legends and religions that a great
flood destroyed the world. In 2000 B.C. the Babylonians wrote of a violent storm with hurricane
force winds, powerful rains, and a disastrous flood. It is possible the a massive storm surge from
a large cyclone in the Persian Gulf could have flooded the Tigris and Euphrates Region. The
Evidence of the major flood came from archaeological excavations in the late 1930’s at Ur. Field
workers found a thick layer of water laid mud between layers of soil loaded with mud, brick,
ashes, and pottery. The most talked about blizzard ever to hit northeastern U.S blanketed an
area from Main through Maryland and from buffalo to Pittsburgh. Snow was 4 feet or deeper
and drifts of 30 to 40 feet buried hundreds of towns and villages. The storm affected on quarter
of the country’s population and isolated a dozen its largest cites. The snow began just after
midnight on Monday 12, 1888.