A Good Book

I have to return a book to the library today that I haven't finished. Darn it! It's a new book by Neil DeGrasse Tyson called Death by Black Hole and Other Cosmic Quandaries.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0393062244/bookstorenow79-20

It's easy to read, very interesting, and it's current! It was published this year! I believe that I am the first person to have checked this copy out as it looks pristine. Its newness probably explains why someone else is waiting for it and I can't renew my check out. Oh well. I'm about half-way through so I'll request it again and finish whenever my name climbs to the top of the queue.
We all know that it takes a photon of light 8 minutes to travel from the surface of the sun to the surface of Earth. I never knew (or even thought about) how long it took for that proton to travel from the center of the sun to the surface of the sun. The answer: One million years. Wow. In the book, Tyson compares the photon's escape from the center of the sun, to a drunk trying to cross the street. For each step froward, it takes one or more steps backward or sideways due to collisions with other particles but eventually it makes it. "Eventually" is an understatement.