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Who was your least favorite character? (again, we can discuss this in the final review post)
Who was your favorite character? (we can discuss this further for the final review post due monday)
Reading Schedule
Due May 22ish Part 1: Chapters 1-38
Due May 29ish Part 2: Chapters 39-69
Due June 5ish Part 3: Chapters 70-105
Due June 12th Part 4: Chapters 106-end
Due June 17th: Final Review
Due May 29ish Part 2: Chapters 39-69
Due June 5ish Part 3: Chapters 70-105
Due June 12th Part 4: Chapters 106-end
Due June 17th: Final Review
Followers
So far the book is very entertaining. Not to take away from the other books we read this year but this book is easier to get through without falling asleep (Ethan Frome)... It is not as realistic as I thought it was going to be but it has a nice element of science in it. Kohler reminds me of Professor Xavier from X-Men. Anyone else get that feeling?
ReplyDeleteDan Brown's approach to settling the dispute between science and religion is questionable, however it is concievably possible. Maybe one day we will be able to prove or disprove the exsistance of a God or "Greater Energy." Leonardo Vetra's beliefs about God are very similar to mine in that religion and science have a mutual relationship. We still have yet to discover the source of energy that created matter.
There is also the million dollar question to answer. Why have the Illuminati become so violent? The original Illuminati were only trying to prevent the Catholic Church from having too much power. Maybe the Illuminati have become corrupted overtime and forgot about their intial goal.
Anyone else agree this book should be apart of the 11th grade curriculum?
I like this book so far. It's not dull or boring and it's pretty simplistic and easy to understand. What I really want to know is if any of this is possible. Will we be able to one day do all of these things that Dan Brown is writing about? Can we really one day create antimatter and use it to help and prove/disprove the existence of god? I hope we can. As for Mike's question about the curriculum, I would say probably not. It is a very good book and it certainly isn't boring, but it seems to simplistic. It would not be a reall AP book unless it was slow or bad or just outdated and difficult to get through. And Kohler could totally be Professor X if he wasn't so mean spirited. Professor X wanted to help the outcast, this guy is an egomaniac, though I think over time he might get better.
ReplyDeleteWell I don't know about this Professor X guy because I've never seen X-men...sorry. Anyway, I agree with both of you; this book is a lot more exciting than our AP English books that we read this year. I really like the short chapters because I think it makes the story easier to get through. It doesn't seem as long when there is a break after every 5 pages or so.
ReplyDeleteSo far, I really like Vittoria Vetra because her views about religion and science are realistic. I just don’t understand the people that are complete radicals-either believing that god is the only correct answer to questions or believing that there is no place for god in the world of science. In my opinion, there has to be a middle ground. However, because this book challenges the Roman Catholic faith, I have a feeling it would never be approved as a book for the school curriculum. There is still too much controversy with introducing religious matters in schools and I’m sure there would be parents banging down the school doors if their children came home with this book for English class. I think it is great to look at science and religion differently, but others are not as open.
As for the actual plot line, I often wonder how much of this is possible. I mean, I know this is a fictional book, but sometimes it seems so real, that it is hard to accept that some aspects are merely a figure of Dan Brown’s imagination. Even though these types of scientific discoveries are not happening now, doesn’t mean that they won’t come around eventually, and who knows, maybe this book will spark some more interest in antimatter studies. Maybe soon there will be a scientist like Leonardo and Vittoria Vetra who will be able to utilize some of the new scientific discoveries to unite science and religion. Although I think this is a long shot, it would be cool if there were more people in the world similar to the Vetra’s, who refuse to conform to society’s close-minded views.
I'm definitely going to agree that Kohler is like Professor Xavier...except with a colder heart...
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I kind of just signed onto this blog in the first place because I didn't really want to read Huck Finn. I had no idea what I was getting into. However, this book is so good that I don't get why I haven't read it already; just the exploration of religion and science is interesting, and by supporting the story with real-world occurrences, such as CERN and the Illuminati, the book seems, like Meagan said, almost like a non-fiction book, or a historical fiction book. It kept my attention, and the fact that he does this doesn't make his story seem too much on the fantastic side.
As for the blending of religion and science, I certaintly hope it happens soon; people, nowadays, feel they have to adopt either one entire ideology or the other. There is no gray area. But, in doing this, we ignore the positives that the other side has to offer. Yes, science provides us with unlimited knowledge and curiosity, but we fail to take in the strong moral base that religion has to offer. We therefore create a generation of smart people who have no respect for each other, and a bunch of Bible-thumping-men who can't tell the difference between a proton and an electron.
First off... Meagan what is wrong with you? You have to see X-men. It's a must. Second off I got the same feel for Kohler. THe entire time i was reading I thought that he resembled Professor Xavier (but it's like as Alex said.. he's not as compassionate).
ReplyDeleteThis book couldn't enter the curriculum because it is just too simple and interesting. There is not much symbolism or other things to evaluate or anything - this is more of an entertaining book. Also as Meagan said, there are too many controversial issues in this book to be read in public schools.
As for the reality of the book, it's actually pretty close. They do have super fast planes (ones that can go about the speed of light in fact). Also, antimatter has been created and it is a pure energy source, but it is never created in such large amounts, nor have we found a way for it to be safely and successfully stored. Also, antimatter cannot be found in such large amounts. As to how I know all this - yes, I am just a super physics nerd (or a nerd in general).
But this book is very interesting. I like how he adds a lot of science and facts because these are concepts that aren't really familiar to us and so we are captivated by them. I'm glad that we are doing this book instead of others (including Huck Finn).
I really like this book a lot. It's easier to read than almost everything that we've done this year, and it's a nice break as far as I'm concerned. I think it's really interesting the way Dan Brown has combined the religious and scientific worlds in the hopes of ending the dispute so to speak. What's really interesting though is that Dan Brown didn't actuaually come up with any of this information himself, it's all information and scenarios previously hypothesized that he just put into a book. It's all plausible- creationism, antimatter, etc. These are all realistic scientific possiblities that have yet to be fully explored and discovered. Also I don't really Kohler as being like Xavier because he doesn't know everything the way proffessor X does. Xavier and Batman are very similar but it seems as if Kohler's a much lazier person, not striving to fully grasp the situation on his own.
ReplyDeleteI think we need to start comparing this book to something other than Xmen because I'm not planning on seeing that anytime soon...
ReplyDeleteAnyway, Kersten, I actually didn't know that this book was so realistic. I thought that some of the scientific aspects were exaggerated a lot or even completely made up. Thanks for the tip because now I think the book is even more interesting because a lot of the stuff ca actually happen. I especially like the idea that there are super fast planes like the one in the book. This book actually includes a lot of science concepts in it. I'm not sure if you guys noticed that Dan Brown mentions several of the concepts that we learned in physics this year. I thought it was pretty funny because I remembered some of the stuff from our physics tests and it all seemed a lot simpler when I was reading it in this book.
Fine we won't compare it to x-men... we'll compare it to the Avengers! Kohler is just like Iron Man. Anyway alot of these concepts do seem possible, we just don't have the technology availible to us yet. One day maybe we can create a super plane or an anti-matter canister, though honestly i can probably wait for that day. When the day comes that we can harvest antimatter, it will probably start a whole new chapter in the story of humanity. It would provide new power sources yes, but as we see in the book, it will also create new forms of terrorism. Will we be able to handle the reprecussions that come with this new technology?
ReplyDeleteyea i see your point...I think this book might actually be Dan Brown's way of showing everyone the way that technology is headed. So many people don't recognize that there are risks to the new scientific research performed today. On the other hand, we're not scientists so we don't have much support for thoughts on this subject. For all we know there could have been tons of research performed that proves the benefits of these technological advances outway the possible severe consequences.
ReplyDeleteAnd sorry but I don't know who Iron Man is either.
By the way kersten....planes can travel the speed of sound, not the speed of light. If we could travel the speed of light, we would be exploring much further into space.
ReplyDeleteOne flaw I found in Brown's writing is that he comes up with random ways to explain happenings in the book. "How do you know of the segno?....Some scholars and I found it one day and found the correlation between it and the Illuminati." It annoys me sometimes that he uses these easy back door exits to explain himself, although it is very entertaining writing.
The biggest disapointment I have with life is that we might not live to see major events happen. I want to be alive if they ever learn how to contain antimatter. I want to be alive when we make contact with other intelligent life. It disapoints me that this will be highly unlikely.
-Mike Drechsler
But if tons of research was performed on this topic, why is it that we are unable to do anything in the book? And even if there are several benifits, the book shows that these new advances are highly unstable and are capable of killing millions if put in the wrong hands.
ReplyDeleteAnd how can you not know Iron Man? He's only one of the greatest superheroes of all time. He even has a song named after him.
you're definitely right mike! I guess I wasn't relaly thinking about the explanations that Dan Brown gave for everything Langdon knew. When I looked back at it, it all seems a little to good to be true. For every problem an answer just magically appears. It's funny that even after all that, we still find this book believable and realistic.
ReplyDeleteYeah this is all really true. And Mike.. I meant the speed of sound, not the speed of light (my bad). I wish I could live to see the technologies of the future. I think that for every good thing that is created though, a negative purpose will be assigned to it. It doesn't take a mastermind to turn an amazing invention like antimatter into the greatest weapon of the era.
ReplyDeleteAnd we can't do much of this yet because much of the technology mentioned is new and scientists still aren't sure how stable the technology is. We can do the things in the book - but it's like the pilot said in the beginning: it might just take a while for the inventions to reach the general public.
And Iron man is def an awesome hero. Not to mention, Iron man, like X-Men, had a very awesome movie.