Book Review – Journey to the Center of the Earth (Jules Verne)

Jules Verne was a French author who mainly wrote science fiction stories. He was born on 8th February 1828 and passed away in 1905. He is known very well for his novels like “Around the world in 80 days”, “From the Earth to the Moon” and also “Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea”. Jules Verne was one of the few who pioneered Science Fiction. He had predicted space exploration, underwater and even air travel. His works inspired people to invent things like the submarine.

In the mid-19th century, exploration of unknown lands was very common. So, while the explorers study the face of the earth, Jules Verne had the idea about travelling to the depths of the world. Besides that, Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution was starting to get noticed. Throughout his novel, Jules Verne used Charles Darwin’s theory in his novel.

The novel starts with Professor Lindenbrock finding a coded text on a piece of paper he found in an old book. After his nephew, Axel, managed to decode the text, Professor Lindenbrock decided to take Axel along with him on a journey to the center of the world which the scrap of paper said was possible.

They went to Mount Sneffels with their guide, Hans, and began to descend down the volcano. Along the way, they saw many magnificent sights and learned a lot. For example, they found an untouched coal mine and even found an underground ocean. However, they also met many setbacks.

Their first setback was when they ran out of water. They went around the vents looking for water but all they met was a dead end. The party turned back to take a different route but along the way, Axel could no longer bear the dehydration and faints. After many attempts to find water, they finally found a torrent of water which they named Hansbach, after their loyal guide who found the water.

Their second setback was when Axel got lost. He attempted to retrace his steps but still could not find his uncle. After a few days of suffering they were reunited. At this point, they found a large underground water body. Which they sailed across but realised that it was larger than they had expected.

Eventually they reached the shore and were once again blocked by a granite wall which they blasted apart. However, they were thrown onto a raft and swept down by the currents into the chasm. Their fall was stopped by a spout. They soon realise that the spout was lava and that they were in a volcano which was about to erupt. As the lava spewed out of the volcano, the party managed to return to the surface of the earth riding the lava.

This story may not have been set very far into Jules Verne’s future with a recognizable setting of the 19th century, but it depicts human underground exploration. Jules Verne’s fictional characters manage to accomplish in his novel what up till now we are still unable to achieve in reality. This science fiction novel attracts modern readers despite being written so long time ago because it reflects our dreams, our desire to explore what is beneath us. Despite living on planet earth, what happens underground is only theorized by scientists. The story is filled with many interesting science facts and theories which captivate the readers and interest them in that particular field of science.

"Science, my lad, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth." This is a very true statement. In the field of science, only mistakes would lead one to truth. When one makes mistakes, others will be there to correct and give their opinions. By listening to these voices, we would find that there is actually more ways to think about a certain issue. This way, we would be able to work on the possible theories and find the truth. However, this statement would of course not only apply to science. It applies to our daily life. When trying to strive for the truth or answers in anything, failure is inevitable. In our journey for truth, we would meet many road blocks and only overcoming them or finding another path would we then reach our destination.

“If at every instant we may perish, so at every instant we may be saved. Let us then be prepared to seize upon the smallest advantage." Opportunity is everywhere. However, we sometimes we just are not able to see or detect it and then realise that it is lost only after it has passed. We should constantly be on a lookout for opportunity and always be prepared to exploit them. If we are able to get every single opportunity that comes our way and make the best use of them, we would be extremely successful in our life

MRT vandalism

In the case of MRT train being vandalized. so far only a 33 year old Swiss national has been arrested. The police are still investigating and arresting people who were involved in the vandalism.
Vandalism destroys the aesthetic beauty of something. By vandalizing, these people are being very inconsiderate. There are many other people using the MRT train. Should these vandals not think about the users? Besides, there vandalism would mean that the train company have to spent money and resources clearing up the mess that they made. When the train is pulled out of service for cleaning, if the company does not have another train to replace the one out of service, then it would cause a lot of trouble for the commuters.
These vandals do not understand how the electronics work. When they trespassed and vandalized the train, what if they had damaged a piece of important equipment. If that happened, it might put a lot of people in danger. If the train malfunctioned, it might cause a tragedy, leaving many injured or even worse, dead.
The MRT staff should also be blamed for this incident. When the vandals had trespassed, why didn't they notice it. If those who had trespassed were not vandals but terrorist, they could have planted a bomb and the consequences would have been disastrous. Also, the staff did not notice the vandalism for two days. The train went in and out of the station and none of the staff noticed it. I feel that the MRT staff should be more alert and aware of their surroundings. This incident has shown that the staffs were not vigilant enough. This time it is vandalism, who knows what will happen the next time due to the staffs' lack of vigilance.

Deterring a Dirty Bomb

In an article, Sharon Begley of newsweek discussed the importance of protecting nuclear materials so that terrorist groups would not be able to get these nuclear materials to create nuclear weapons. She also shared with us the many ways to track these nuclear materials.

Many countries are turning to nuclear energy as a source of energy because it is known as a form of green of energy. Thus, these countries are thinking of many ways to guard their nuclear waste from theft especially from the terrorist organizations. However, many of the countries have never thought about nuclear forensics and how it would benefit them.

I agree with Sharon Begley that we should start focusing on nuclear forensics now. Nuclear forensics is something that we have not really been doing much research about. With further and more in-depth research on nuclear forensic I believe we would be to prevent nuclear attacks be terrorists on our country.

It is definitely important to research more on nuclear forensics to protect our countries however, perhaps we should still place our main focus on increasing the security at nuclear facilities so that terrorist would not even be able to steal the nuclear materials for their nuclear weapons. If we are able to secure the nuclear materials, we may not even require nuclear forensics to protect ourselves against nuclear attacks.