A Day The World Change Chapter 1 Summary

As the building block of life, cells contain inconceivable amounts of genetic information, as well as perform functions any living being needs in order to survive. Since a lot of people tend to struggle with such a complete utterance, Joshua Z. Rappoport develops the scholarly text, The Cell, on,”discovering the microscopic world that determines our health, our consciousness, and our future,”(front cover). Other than this text, many others publish their works in the past on this subject; some of which are Nobel Peace Prize winners. Throughout chapter one, “A Day the World Changed”, Rapporport refers to Robert Hooke who uses a microscope in the 1660s to examine a slice of cork. Overall, “what he saw changed human understanding of the world in a way at least as profound as the first telescopic examination

In 1665, Hooke publishes Micrographia which includes detailed drawings that begins the world's trek into the understanding of the cell, and how such a small creation makes up everything known to man. Most readers may read the information filled text to possibly kick-start an understanding of the cell, or to simply broaden their own comprehension of the complicated subject. Rappoport writes this novel intending to have readers of all levels of knowledge towards the study of biology as a whole. Keeping this in mind, he makes sure to keep his explanations simple, but to also dabble in the more complicated spectrum of the subject in order to continue the attention of those with intermediate and also advanced understanding. Within the introduction on why one should read this book, Rappoport states that his, “purpose for writing this book is to give the average person a better understanding of the basic science of cellular and molecular biology so that you can evaluate more critically what you hear and read,”(1). Appealing to the logical aspect, Rappoport uses his high levels of knowledge in biology, which he obtains a PhD in, constantly administers vast