Reading List on the Net {first of 2016!}

I do have another post, in draft, that has way too many links that I have kept but not completely read through. Today, though, I came across two bits on the internet that I didn't want to just leave waiting in that post. I will get back to the other links soon... I hope.

Gravitational Waves Detected, Confirming Einstein’s Theory

As I put this here, I've been following the links in the original linked article, and find that this was discovered in September 2015.

LIGO of Louisiana and Washington detected a sound, a chirp, that finally confirmed Einstein's prediction of gravitational waves. Two black holes many light years away converged into one, creating a massive amount of energy that created waves. These waves rippled through the space-time, and were detected, by sound, last year. Einstein's theory of relativity "describes space-time as a kind of sagging mattress where matter and energy, like a heavy sleeper, distort the geometry of the cosmos to produce the effect we call gravity, obliging light beams as well as marbles and falling apples to follow curved paths through space."

My son and I have been reading through various physics related books and much of what is being presented now are not theories that have been conclusively proven. They are all 'hopefuls', or well, theories. They are uncertainties. It makes me wonder how much more will scientists come to 'know' about our world and the universe. But unfortunately, the number who attribute this wonder to God, and instead credit an accident, are still so small.

Poetry Teatime – Creating A Language Rich Environment

Yesterday the kids and I had teatime with Shakespeare. Then they moved on to reading some Pygmalion, followed by a bit of Les Miserables. Well, my daughter got interested in the last bit; by then my son had lost his interest. (After all, the tea and shortbread were gone!)

For us, reading these bits out loud are a great help to our comprehension of what is written. How often can you read a poem (or any passage really) and just not get it. Read it out loud though...and wow! it is clear!

We weren't tea drinkers until there was a challenge on the AO Forum* for having a month of teatime. *You'll need to register to see the thread. It was February 2014.

Here's a delightful look at teatime shared by Larkrise on the forum: A Home Tea

But there, the original post,

To Create a language rich, literary environment in our homes, it often means pushing past the ‘formulaic study’ and making room for the flow and freedom of reading, doing life around piles of living books, celebrating the snuggling and gathering of children around a story and the delighting in the incredible gift of words.

And she quotes CM:

Let them get at the books themselves, and do not let them be flooded with diluted talk from the lips of their teacher. The less the parents ‘talk-in’ and expound their rations of knowledge and thought to the children they are educating, the better for the children…Children must be allowed to ruminate, must be left alone with their own thoughts – Charlotte Mason