Imagine All The People...Living Life In Peace...Yeah, Right. 'Cause That's Gonna Happen...

       
        Hiya, guys. This may very well be my last blog. Wow...after three years...Well, I'll try and get some blogs on here when I'm in high school; but after those seniors telling me that I'd be up till three A.M. just getting my homework done, however, I don't think I'll be able to, but again, I'll definitely try...if I remember. Which brings us to the topic. I originally wanted to do just memory, because my memory stinks, but then I had to add certain vocabulary, which didn't really fit into my topic. So now we're learning about things of the imagination, but I want to do memory, too. I'll add a link, okay? Let's go with IMAGINATION!

        Imagination is incredibly interesting. If you've seen Spongebob, then you know that he has a huge imagination. Especially in that episode. Imagination is actually really cool. It's the process of thinking up ideas or images. But you knew that. I hope. Anyway, the name "imagination" really does make sense, considering it comes from the Latin word for "mental image". Imagination is sort of the opposite of perception. Perception is when your brain takes data from your five senses (which I really hope you know) to form a picture of the world you live in. Perception is basically how you interpret reality. The five sense are:
        Sight

       Hearing

HE'S ADORABLE! HIS BIG EARS AND EYES!

        Taste

        Touch

       Smell

        So those are the five senses. Now, how is it the opposite of imagination? Well, let's say you have an apple in your hands. It's obviously a real apple. So your brain identifies the way it feels, smooth, the way it tastes, tangy and sweet, and the way it smells, in Anabel's words, "Sweet, but yet tart, and also crispy." Hang on, Anabel, how does something smell crispy? It sounds like you fried the apple! Forget she typed that on my blog. Back to the apple. So, after the apple is long gone, probably on its way to the ocean, you might remember how it tasted or how it felt, even how it smelled. That's passive imagination, because it's a memory, and memories events, things, feelings, and sensations.

       But if, say, you came up with a completely new kind of apple, one that you'd never seen before, let alone eaten, then that's active imagination, and a lot of people use active imagination when they daydream. Imagination helps us fill in the gaps about things we don't really understand. Like way back then, when there wasn't any science, the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Norse, Indians, Chinese, and basically nearly every other civilization created myths to help explain things they didn't understand. They needed their imagination for that, right? Right. Imagination, for many people, help the world make sense. It is a really important part of the artistic process. Painters, for example. Some painters create paintings that are lifelike, but that doesn't mean it's not imagination. The artists use their imagination to create art from reality, like Caravaggio.

Caraviggio Painting

        Other painters, like Salvador Dalí, paint things that you're most probably never going to see in your lifetime. In Salvador Dalí's painting "The Persistence of Memory", the painters imagination transformed everyday objects, such as trees or clocks, into something odd and special. But art isn't the only area that people use their imaginations, of course. Any idea, whether it's a new idea to frost some cookies or a new idea for a book, or even a new type of car, can be considered imagination, though if you think about it, all of that is technically art. Inventors use imagination to come up with ideas for useful or non-useful objects. Even scientists use imagination, thinking up hypotheses to explain something. Again, imagination helps us understand. It helps us filled in the gaps, I suppose you could say, for things we simply don't understand.

The Persistence of Memory, by Salvador Dalí

      Imagination is used a lot when we're learning. Say you're four or five, and you're listening to a story. You learn certain words and sounds and other things that you might not notice with imagination. How? Well, your brain sort of activates a small part of your brain to fill in those holes. It takes the words, sounds, phrases, and other things, and turns it it into something you can understand. Imagination is also used in phsycology, to help "fix" the brain when it needs to be fixed. Imagination is called "the mind's eye", and it's really escaping from reality for just a little while and simply look at things differently, and your imagination actually send messages to your brain, which then sends messages to your senses, which all combine with whatever you're imagining to make it seem more lifelike. Pretty cool, huh?

 

        Despite the fact that all of us have imagination, why is it that some people have more of an imagination than others? Well, first off, kids have more gaps than adults, so most likely they'll have a more wild and vivid imagination, because those holes need to be filled, and what better way to fill them than with the nourishment of imagination? But that doesn't mean kids have a better imagination than adults. In fact, if you've seen the book series that some adults have made, then you would've thought that grown-ups have a better imagination. But I think that adults simply have a more controlled imagination than kids. But we're getting off topic. We were supposed to be answering why some people have a better imagination then other people, not kids and grown-ups. (I can almost hear Anabel saying, "Oh wow, such a big difference!") The reason some people have a better imagination than others is because some people use their right side of the brain more than the left. The right side of the brain deals more with imagination and creativity, while the left side focuses more on logic and other things like that.

        All this is really cool, but it doesn't explain why we have imagination. Nobody really knows why we have imagination, though some physiologists and philosophers think that it helps people experience empathy for other people. What is empathy? Empathy is when you put yourself in someone else's shoes, imagination what they might be thinking or feeling. Also, since imagination lets us picture reality in our minds, it actually works quite well on problem solving. Scientists that specialize in evolution think that our ability to be able to solve problems in creative ways was vital to the continued existence of our species. Darn our creative thinking! 

        AIIIEEEE! It really really really really really hurt when, during capture the flag, I tripped over...air...and landed on the green needles they try and pass off as grass. Well, technically, the grass was wet, so that may have contributed to my downfall (literally), but still. It really hurt. Is it true that pain is all in your brain? (Hey, that rhymes! Sorta!) Well, when someone is experiencing pain, often, expecting some kind of medication to result in no pain works as a medicine in itself and is usually enough to actually lessen or get rid of the pain all together. So is pain really all in your head? Yes...and no. Yes, pain is literally "all in your head" because your brain has to explain the pain for you to live it. But pain can't be defined as "imaginary" because once your brain interprets something as painful, once you experience it, it simply can't be classified as all in your head. There actually was a test on a type of medicine that used three groups. Group One was given the medication without being told there was medication. Group Two was given the medication while being assured that it would erase their pain completely. And Group Three was given the medication while being told that it wouldn't help them at all, but rather increase the pain,though why anyone would take medicine knowing that it would increase pain is beyond me. The result was that the Group One and Group Three didn't feel any pain relief, while Group Two felt double the pain relief.

I didn't want to put a picture of a scratch, so voilá! A crying baby!

        And that concludes

IMAGINATION!

        NOW FOR MEMORY! Wouldn't it be awesome if we could remember everything? Every important memory, everything we learned so we wouldn't have to study, all the times spent with at school with your friends and (if you have awesome ones like we do) teachers and even family, every triumph and adventure? Too bad that's nearly impossible. Actually, scratch that: not too bad. Thank goodness. Because that sword swings both ways. If you remembered everything, you would also remember every disappointment, pain, anger, mistake, and  every single terrible thing that happened. Let's go on with memory.

 

        Like anyone else, a man named Karim Nader remembers when two plants smashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, transforming two lively buildings into a pile of heaping, smoking rubble. When the attack happened, Nader had turned on the radio, hearing the voices of the radio caster turn playful banter into horrified panic as they related what was happening in Manhattan. Nader had raced up to the roof of his apartment building, where he had full view of the Twin Towers, not two miles away. Later, he recalls passing through a subway station, where people had left notes and and photographs, searching desperately for their family.  Like tens of thousands of people, Karim Nader has vivid memories of September 11th, 2001, both on the aftermath and the actual event. But unlike other people, he knows not to rely on his memory too much. He knows better than to fully trust his memory.

 

        Most people have "flashback" memories of when something monuments happens: the assassination of John F. Kennedy or the crashing and burning of the Hindenburg or the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. Most of the time, sadly, the recollections aren't very pleasant. But even though those memories may feel so clear and vivid, many physiologists find them utterly and shockingly inaccurate. Nader says that his memory of the attack on the World Trade Center has played a lot of mind tricks on him. He says that he remembers seeing footage on the television on the fateful day of the very first plane hitting the North Tower. But that footage didn't air for the first time until the next day. And Nader wasn't alone: out of five hundred and sixty nine college student of 2003,  seventy three percent thought the very same thing. Nader thinks he has an explanation, too. Nader believes that the act of remembering changes our memory. Interested in more? Click here.

        And that concludes imagination. I hope you liked it and I really hope you enjoyed. As always, my classmates' blogs are below. They're not all talking about the same things I am, so it should be interesting. Oh, and there's a link to Celine's blog, 'cause she did this topic a long time ago, and I got some information from her blog! Yay! There's also more links on imagination and memory if you want them, and some pictures about "What We See Vs. What Kids See." ENJOY!
Anabel's Blog
Katie's Blog
Logan's Blog
Celine's Blog on Imagination
Is Pain All In You Imagination?
How Creativity Works: It's All In Your Imagination
Best Website I Found: The Power of Imagination
How Is Your Memory Holding Up Quiz
A Unique Story About a Woman Who Simply CAN'T FORGET

I see the light....

        Hiya, people. How're you? Me, I'm fine. We have the standardized testing next week, so not great, but dealing with it. So, what d'you think this topic is about? If you think it's about death, stop being so morbid. It has nothing to do with that. Well, sorta. If you guess light, congratulations. That's correct. We're going to be talking a bit about light, along with colors. Colors, to me, are extremely interesting. What is it that makes our eyes see colors? What if you couldn't? What if the whole world was bleached of colors? What if there was no light? Well, first, we probably wouldn't be alive, but still. Can you just imagine? Take a moment and do that. Just imagine there's no light. You wouldn't be able to see anything. We just all take light for granted. Light simply fascinates me, and I can't wait to learn more about it, so, c'mon, let's get started!

        If you're underground, say, in a mine, and you have a candle or flashlight, looking for abandoned miners, and your source of light went out, you wouldn't be able to see. Your eyes wouldn't even adjust like they so normally do. If you've ever been to Dialogue in the Dark, you know how disconcerting it is, how odd it feels. You're just wandering around blindly, hoping your feet are smart enough not to run into anything and trip you. The reason you can't see or your eyes don't adjust is because there's no light for your eyes to detect. Light is electromagnetic radiation that you can see. Again, electromagnetic radiation can't always decide what to be: waves or particles called photons. Photons are particles of electromagnetic radiation, and the frequency of a light wave actually relies on the amount of energy carried by a photon.
     
        So, what do you think are some sources of light? There are many, whether natural and artificial. The sun if one, of course, which includes sunset and sunrise. The corona of the sun is also a source of light, as is starlight, fire, lightning, meteors, supernovas, candles, lamps, lasers, explosions, etcetera. The moon is not a natural source of energy; it simply reflects light from the sun. The light waves from these sources origins of light transport energy from the original source to its surroundings, which, of course, is why we can see. But how does the light travel? I mean, if it didn't travel in the first place, we wouldn't be able to see. If you've read my other blogs, you'd know that light can travel through a medium, but it doesn't necessarily need matter to move through. It can travel through empty space, which we should be grateful for, because then there'd be light from the sun so we could see. Usually, light travels very fast. If it's not restricted, then it can travel up to 300,000 kilometer per second. Light from the sun takes around eight and a half minutes to reach us.
        FUN FACT: Deep, deep, deep into the ocean, where the sun's light cannot penetrate, there are living organisms. Some of these organisims create their own natural light to make up for the lack of sunlight. One of these fish is called the angler fish.

       Light waves can be big or small. What size it is depends on what type of light wave and what color it is. Some are small, and they sorta look like straight lines. But light only moves in a straight lines when it's not going through matter, so you won't see light in a straight line. Poor you....you see, I'm secretly an alien, so I have seen light in a straight lines. My hair is shaped the way it is because that's the only way I can communicate with the mother ship....hehehehehahahaha, I crack myself up. Moving on....Okay, so you know that light waves can travel through mediums, but did you know that
passing through matter alters the speed and the direction of light waves? When it passes through water....AWP! It slows down! That's why pencils look cut in half or bent when they're in a glass of water. Light can only go to its maximum speed when there's nothing to deter it from its path. So when the light is traveling from the sun to earth, it's going as fast as it can possibly go...I'd hate to be in a triathalon with that thing.

You know that random round blue spot that has a hole in the middle? Yeah, that was supposed to be an eye...for some reason, my blog sometimes transfers white backgrounds to black (don't get me wrong; I'm grateful, because it blends in), and the eye was the in white with a black outline in the white background, so...yeah. I put this to explain why pencils look bent.

         Now, what do you think happens when light strikes matter? At first, I just thought it slowed down and that was the end of it. But no. Matter can absorb the light, reflect it, or transmit it, or they can do any combination of them depending on the chemical and physical properties of the matter, as well as the wavelength, frequency, intensity, etc., of the light wave. I think we all know what absorb means, as well as the definition of reflect, but in case you don't:

• Absorb: to take in
• Reflect: to throw or bend back from a surface
• Transmit: to send from one person, place, or thing to another, to pass on, to spread

        More vocabulary in the form of transparent, translucent, and opaque objects. Now, an object or material transmits light when it lets light pass through (May I move forward, good sir? Of course, good chap, carry on.) Transparent materials let all the light pass through so we can see what's on the other side clearly now, the rain is gone. Example of transparent things are water, glass, and air.

Window! Cat can see other cat because the window is transparent!

        Translucent materials, however, scatter light that travels through them, so that you can see what's on the other side, but you can't see it clearly or make out details. (Who's there? Are you a man? No, I'm a muppet. So you're a muppet of a man? I don't know, the window is translucent.) Som examples of translucent materials are frosted glass, some types of plastic, and wax paper.

  
        Opaque are materials that reflect or absorb light. These types of materials don't allow any light to pass through so it's impossible to see what's on the other side. (*horror film*Who's there? I can't see you, the wall is in my way...quiet breathing. Is anyone there? Yeah, I'm in the kitchen. Want a sandwitch?) Some examples of opaue materials are metal, wood, and any other object that won't let light pass through.

        Now for my favorite part! Why do you think objects appear to have different colors? C'mon, guess, guess, guess! No? Fine! I'd love to fo this part, anyway. Okay, so you're outside and you look up and you see blue: the sky. You look down to see green or brown: grass, dirt, mulch, or pine straw. You may see the flash of yellow or red from a bird, and see the pink and purple of a shirt. You may see the orange of a fire, the grey of cement, the black of smoke. What you may not know is that all of those things absorb all colors of light. First, before we get in too deep with color, we need to know about the electromagnetic spectrum!

        The electromagnetic spectrum is the name of a group of different types of radiation, including visible light. Like all waves, light waves have a wavelength, which is the distance between one crest to another. The crest is the highest point of a wave. Waves also have a frequency, or the number of waves that pass a certain point per second. When wavelength increases, frequency decreases, and the less frequency, the lower the power of the wave. When frequency increases, the wavelength decreases, which means that the wave has high energy. Electromagnetic waves are organized by their wavelength in frequency. More electromagnetic waves are invisible to us mere humans. From the least power to the highest power, the electromagnetic spectrum: radio waves, microwaves, infrared waves, visible light waves, ultraviolet light waves, x-rays, and gamma rays. We can see the waves that are in the visible light spectrum. Our eyes see the different wavelengths of visible light as color. The main colors we see are ROY G BIV:

• Red
• Orange 
• Yellow
• Green
• Blue
• Indigo
• Violet

        FUN FACT: When light shines through a prisim, the white light is broken apart, into colors of the visible light spectrum. Water vapor in the atmosphere also break apart, creating a rainbow, those wonderful pretty colors of light!

        Though people can see thousands of colors, most just stick with those colors to make things easy. Anyway, all of the colors of visible light all combine to make white light. Light looks white to us, but it's really a bunch of colors. Things look like different colors because things absorb different light energy. The grass looks green because it absorbs the red, orange, yellow, blue, indigo, and violet waves, but reflects the green waves, which then hits our eyes and causes us to think that grass is green. This would be ROY BIV, since the green is reflected, not absorbed. It's the same thing with the color of the shirt you're wearing. I'm wearing a red shirt, and this happens because the shirt absorbs the orange, yellow, blue, undigo, and violet light waves, but reflect the red waves. So it'd be OY G BIV, I s'pose....
        ANOTHER FUN FACT: Go to Google Images, and look up Jupiter. What you see is a full color picture. But I bet you didn't know that that those pictures are in false color. The colors were chosen to stress the cloud structure on the banded planet. So Jupiter most probably wouldn't look like that to you.

        Almost any color can be made by mixing the three primary colors of light: red, green, and blue. When the colors overlap, they make new colors of light. For example, your brain thinks of red and green waves mixed together as yellow. But that's only to mix the colors of light.  The pigments that are used in pain can be used to make colors as well. However, mixing paint is different than mixing light. The three primary pigment colors are cyan, yellow, and magenta. Yellow pigments absorb blue light, but reflects green and red light. So your brain sees yellow! If you mix all of the primary pigment colors, you'll get black. Mix all the primary colors of light, you'll get white.

        And, that's all, folks! I really hope you enjoyed my blog, or at least learned something. Color was interesting, was it not? That's what I thought. It was interesting. As was the rest of light. I mean, come on, light is life! Literally! So, yes, my classmate's blogs are down below, and so is the link to a video of charlieissocoollike's, who SuperSara really seems to like. I can't put the actual video because my blog is stupid. Also, as always, there will be links in case you want to learn more. So, thanks for reading, and peace out!
SuperSara's Blog
Katie's Blog
Logan's Blog
Good Informative Website
Good Website For Info
A Website With Quiz At The End: I Expect All Of You To Ace This
charlieissocoollike: Lights