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The third event I have chosen to attend is the online event, Santiago Torres: We are all made of star dust . Santiago Torres was a physics professor at UCLA and conducts research at the University of Austria. He studies dynamical interactions in the universe. According to Torres, everything is made of stardust that is the same stardust that was in the big bang that became galaxies and stars. The Big Bang (1) Torres states that the universe is not alone, and that we are not in isolation but together in many ways. He asks, “why do we have distinctions between people when we are all star dust?” Following this logic, all art is also stardust (2). Torres thinks that the most powerful message is that we should be sharing with everyone. I agree with Santiago Torres that we should share with each other. Sharing is one of the first concepts we learn as children, especially when we have siblings. Our parents and guardians and teachers teach us to share. At some point, many of us seem to lose thi...

I was excited about this week’s module because I have always been fascinated by space. I studied physics at university in Scotland, and I was going to study astrophysics in Dublin, Ireland, before I decided to stay here in Los Angeles instead. The first video in this week’s series mentioned Nicolaus Copernicus who explained the observed motion of the heavens with a model of the solar system with the Sun slightly off center. I was not aware that a crater on the moon was named after him (1). Copernicus’ Heliocentric Model of the Solar System from 1512 (1) It was interesting to find out that NASA was formed in 1958 (the same year my mother was born!) I would have guessed that it had been around longer than that. It was also interesting to learn that it was formed as a result of failed U.S. attempts to catch up with Russia in the “space race.” NASA founded in 1958 (2) The materials that most influenced me this week were the videos of the animals being used in experiments for space travel...