a).

What is the underlying value in the text

Some segments of this book may be rough
going. That's the nature of real science. It
requires thought. Sometimes deep thought.
But thinking can be rewarding. You can just
skip the rough parts, or you can struggle to
understand?

The underlying value here is the importance of

effort in science and that persevering through a
tough concept to its solution is the only way
progress is made.

b) What is the authors purpose or

perspective of the passage The giant black
holes in the cores of galaxies, a million to
20 billion times heavier than the Sun,
therefore, cannot have been born in the
death of a star. They must have formed in
some other way, perhaps by the
agglomeration of many smaller black holes;
perhaps by the collapse of massive clouds
of gas.?

The authors purpose is to bring to the readers

attention that supermassive black holes cannot
form as the direct result of a single stars
collapse, but instead through the combination
of multiple colliding black holes or from the
collapse to a singularity of something with
much larger mass that a star such as a cloud of
space gas.

c) What does the phrase Everything likes

to live where it will age the most slowly, and
gravity pulls it there. mean?

This phrase refers to the time dilation that

occurs according to general relativity within a
strong gravitational field of influence. This
phrase also implies the tendency for objects to
stabilize at the lowest energy, and where it will
age the most slowly and become the most
stable is attributed to gravity itself.

d) What might be a good title for the portion

of the text describing the mass of Gargantia
based on its influence on Millers planet?

A good title would be Gargantia: a Fitting

Name because the text truly shows the
extreme mass of a black hole and thus why the
black hole is named Gargantia.

f) What is the most important sentence in

the excerpt These singularities, he
asserted, are a place in which the fiery
marriage of Einsteins relativistic laws with
the quantum laws is consummated. The
fruits of that marriage, the laws of quantum
gravity, come into full blossom in
singularities, Wheeler asserted. If we could
understand singularities, we would learn the
laws of quantum gravity?

The most important sentence in this excerpt is

the assertion that if singularities could be
understood, then quantum gravity, or the
unified theory that explains relativity and
quantum mechanics together, could be learned
as well. It is very important because it specifies
an object in which relativistic and quantum
observations have been made.

g) Is there something in the text Now, it is

The one thing in this piece of text that is

an amazing fact that exotic matter can

exist, thanks to weirdnesses in the laws of
quantum physics. Exotic matter has even
been made in physicists laboratories, in
tiny amounts, between two closely spaced
electrically conducting plates. This is called
the Casimir effect. that is unclear to you?

unclear is what exactly the Casimir effect is and

what impact it has on the existence of exotic
matter with negative energies. After further
research, the Casimir Effect is the small
attractive force that exists between two
uncharged conducting plates due to
electromagnetic field fluctuations in a quantum
vacuum while the l=plates are nearly together

h) Has anything in the text When a black

hole is spun up, its shell of fire expands
outward and inward, so it occupies a finite
volume rather than just the surface of a
sphere changed your way of thinking?

This quote from the book changed views the

extent of the effect of spin of a black hole on its
characteristics and its influence on things
around it. I realize now that the spin of a black
hole affects things such as the spherical firewall
around a black hole in surprising ways.

j) What does the quote At our meeting, I

suggested to Steven and Lynda two
guidelines for the science of Interstellar: 1.
Nothing in the film will violate firmly
established laws of physics, or our firmly
established knowledge of the universe. 2.
Speculations (often wild) about illunderstood physical laws and the universe
will spring from real science, from ideas that
at least some respectable scientists
regard as possible. mean to me
personally?

This quote means that the producers went to

great lengths to make their movie as accurate
as possible. I immensely appreciate this effort
and definitely saw it while watching their film.

k) Why is the idea that an exceedingly

advanced civilization could produce such a
singularity artificially by precisely tuning a
waves implosion, and then could try to
extract the laws of quantum gravity from the
singularitys behavior important?

This idea is very important because it proposes

a possible way for humanity to definitively study
a black hole in the future, if civilization acquires
the ability to manipulate gravitational waves.

l) Is it right that No matter how hard we

may try, we can only travel forward. The
relativistic laws guarantee it. ?

I do agree with the author on this notion,

despite some peoples claim that time cannot
be understood at this time, making reverse time
travel a possibility. There is no evidence to
support these claims, and the assertion made
here about the unidirectional nature of time is
supported by many theories and mathematical
proofs. Therefore I do agree with this author on
this topic.