We know amazingly little about what happens beneath our feet. It is fairly remarkable to think that Ford has been building cars and baseball has been playing World Series for longer than we have known that the Earth has a core. And of course the idea that the continents move about on the surface like lily pads has been common wisdom for much less than a generation. Strange as it may seem, wrote Richard Feynman, we understand the distribution of matter in the interior of the Sun far better than we understand the interior of the Earth. The
Humanity's understanding of the Earth's interior is surprisingly limited, given our advancements in various fields. For instance, we have been manufacturing cars and celebrating the World Series longer than we've known about the Earth's core. The concept of continental drift, where continents shift on the Earth's surface, is also a relatively recent development in scientific thought. It is astounding how little we grasp about what lies beneath us even as we claim to understand much about other celestial bodies.
Famed physicist Richard Feynman highlighted the paradox that we have a clearer understanding of the Sun's inner workings than we do of our own planet. This stark contrast raises questions about our knowledge and the priorities of scientific inquiry. Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything" encapsulates this notion by exploring the deficiencies in our understanding of Earth's geology compared to our extensive knowledge of other areas in the universe.
