FAVORITES.

WE ARE STARDUST

“The atoms of our bodies are traceable to stars that manufactured them in their cores and exploded these enriched ingredients across our galaxy, billions of years ago. For this reason, we are biologically connected to every other living thing in the world. We are chemically connected to all molecules on Earth. And we are atomically connected to all atoms in the universe. We are not figuratively, but literally stardust.”

HITTING THE TARGET

QUIETING THE RIOTING

BREAKING THE HABIT

OUR NEAREST NEIGHBORS

Space, let me repeat, is enormous. The average distance between stars out there is 20 million million miles. Even at speeds approaching those of light, these are fantastically challenging distances for any traveling individual. Of course, it is possible that alien beings travel billions of miles to amuse themselves by planting crop circles in Wiltshire or frightening the daylights out of some poor guy in a pickup truck on a lonely road in Arizona (they must have teenagers, after all), but it does seem unlikely.

Still, statistically the probability that there are other thinking beings out there is good. Nobody knows how many stars there are in the Milky Way — estimates range from 100 billion or so to perhaps 400 billion — and the Milky Way is just one of 140 billion or so other galaxies, many of them even larger than ours. In the 1960s, a professor at Cornell named Frank Drake, excited by such whopping numbers, worked out a famous equation designed to calculate the chances of advanced life in the cosmos based on a series of diminishing probabilities.

Under Drake’s equation you divide the number of stars in a selected portion of the universe by the number of stars that are likely to have planetary systems; divide that by the number of planetary systems that could theoretically support life; divide that by the number on which life, having arisen, advances to a state of intelligence; and so on. At each such division, the number shrinks colossally — yet even with the most conservative inputs the number of advanced civilizations just in the Milky Way always works out to be somewhere in the millions.

What an interesting and exciting thought. We may be only one of millions of advanced civilizations. Unfortunately, space being spacious, the average distance between any two of these civilizations is reckoned to be at least two hundred light-years, which is a great deal more than merely saying it makes it sound. It means for a start that even if these beings know we are here and are somehow able to see us in their telescopes, they’re watching light that left Earth two hundred years ago. So they’re not seeing you and me. They’re watching the French Revolution and Thomas Jefferson and people in silk stockings and powdered wigs — people who don’t know what an atom is, or a gene, and who make their electricity by rubbing a rod of amber with a piece of fur and think that’s quite a trick. Any message we receive from them is likely to begin “Dear Sire,” and congratulate us on the handsomeness of our horses and our mastery of whale oil. Two hundred light-years is a distance so far beyond us as to be, well, just beyond us.

So even if we are not really alone, in all practical terms we are. Carl Sagan calculated the number of probable planets in the universe at large at 10 billion trillion — a number vastly beyond imagining. But what is equally beyond imagining is the amount of space through which they are lightly scattered. “If we were randomly inserted into the universe,” Sagan wrote, “the chances that you would be on or near a planet would be less than one in a billion trillion trillion.” (That’s 10 , or a one followed by thirty-three zeroes.) “Worlds are precious.”

Which is why perhaps it is good news that in February 1999 the International Astronomical Union ruled officially that Pluto is a planet. The universe is a big and lonely place. We can do with all the neighbors we can get.

WHAT FACTORS, YOU ASK?

• Mandarin has a number system that is logical and much easier to learn at a young age — children do not have to learn new numbers after 10!
• 11 is simply "ten, one"
• 12 is "ten, two"
• 24 is "two tens, four"
Teaching two-digit numbers automatically teaches addition, place value, and breaking down numbers into component parts!
• It also has shorter numbers (shorter to read, easier to learn)
• As a result, the average four year old child in China can count to 40...
• Whereas the average American four year old can only count to 15!
• Lastly, as the title of the chapter "Rice Paddies and Math Tests" suggests, these kids grow up in a culture that values grit, hard work, and persistence
• Essentially, they grow up with the growth mindset

INSIGHTS, FOR YOUR BRAIN HEALTH!

Get your pencil moving! Studies show that this simple step activates more of your brain than sitting still and concentrating with all your might—adding all new meaning to the phrase "learn by doing!"