Summer Update and Science Video

So I’ve been a bit behind on my updates lately (5 months…), but I’m finally getting around to it again, so I’m doing an update for all of it at once.

So the biggest thing that happened to me is that I graduated High School in May, and started college classes in the summer. I am now officially a student of Moody Bible Institute, Spokane, in their Missionary Aviation with a flight focus! The summer classes I took (Introduction to Philosophy and Christian Missions) were very interesting. I got to share some of my more abstract ideas from this website with the fellow students in the Philosophy course and the professor engaged me about them, so I got to discuss my ideas with someone, and as an added bonus, he actually had formal training in the area.

Also, the past two Mondays I got to meet Min Seong Lee, a student from South Korea who has a PhD in solid matter physics, and we talked about my relativity post (be looking for an update on that post based on that conversation). I learned a lot of science stuff, mostly relating to relativity and quantum mechanics, and he suggested I read the book The Hidden Reality by Brian Greene, which talks about quantum mechanics. He also showed me an online resource called OpenCourseWare, where anyone with YouTube access can actually watch the lectures from certain MIT courses. As much as I am able, I plan to use that resource, combined with the book he recommended, to learn quantum mechanics, which should greatly increase my understanding of science and my ability to develop the ideas I come up with here!

On a  non-scientific topic, I learned to write in Dwarvish this month! There are apparently several variants on the alphabet, the main ones being the original Anglo-Saxon runes, the runes used in Erebor, the runes used in Moria, and the Elvish rune system known as the Angerthas Daeron. The system that I learned appears to be an early version of the Angerthas Moria, before they switched the runes for H and S, and replaced the runes for J and ZH with runes borrowed from the Angerthas Daeron. I have started a prayer journal using this alphabet, and it has the combined benefits of looking awesome (I have a genuine leather-bound book filled with Dwarvish Runes!), helping me think through stuff in my personal life, and helping me grow closer to God.

For those of you interested, here is a picture of what I learned (it is actually the picture I learned it from)The rune (certh, plural is cirth) for S can be reversed with no consequences, and the certh that replaced J and ZH are and , respectively.

Now, there is a total solar eclipse coming up on Monday, August 21st, so for the science video today, here is Destin’s video about the solar eclipse:

 

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