General Science 3rd Edition Clarifications
In our effort to provide families with accurate science that glorifies God, this course went through
thorough and detailed editing. Yet, although scientific accuracy is a major goal, as with any large
instructional work there will be places where information can be clarified.

Carbon-14 dating, pages 104-105 and 180- 181
Carbon-14 could technically allow scientists to identify dates that could be tens of thousands of years
old. However, to accurately date an item, it has to be calibrated with dendrochronology (discussed on
pages 102-104). That just means that the carbon-14 dates are supported by dates confirmed using
dendrochronology.

Oort cloud, pages 133-134
At the farthest points of our solar system, the Oort cloud is a theorized shell of objects made of lots of
ice. Named after Jan Oort, who first suggested its presence, the Oort cloud is still yet to be confirmed;
there is no direct observational evidence for its existence. Scientists have inferred its presence from long-period comets.

p. 258, figure 9.21
Magnets do not have positive and negative sides, but rather north and south poles (refer to figure 9.20).
The image should have the letter N in place of the plus sign and the letter S in place of the negative sign.

p. 12, OYO 1.3
Einstein believed that it would be a very long time before nuclear power would ever be a good source of
usable energy.

p. 19
Robert Boyle paragraph, last sentence: “He was a dedicated Christian, often writing materials and
sponsoring sermons that used nature to give glory to God.”

p. 69, last paragraph
The burning flame heated the air inside the container, which created high pressure. You may have seen
some bubbles escape. When the oxygen inside the glass was used up, the flame went out, the
temperature decreased, water vapor condensed on the inside of the glass, and the pressure inside the
glass was reduced. Water outside was sucked inside to equalize the pressure. When you study chemistry
and physics in high school, you will understand these concepts in greater detail.

p. 122, first paragraph, second sentence
Sometimes large eruptions of energy, called solar flares, shoot out from the photosphere.

p. 124, Solar eclipses section, sentence with the word “umbra”:
The inner part of the Moon’s shadow on Earth is called an umbra and is just a few hundred miles in
diameter.

p. 148, Figure 6.2
The bracket for lithosphere should extend upward to encompass the entire crust of the Earth.

p. 205, second full paragraph, third sentence

Change the word “rise” to “drop.”

p. 219 fourth-fifth paragraphs
Paragraph 4
According to Bohr, electrons spin around the nucleus in orbits, called orbitals, much the same way a
moon would orbit a planet | The farther away the orbit from the nucleus | So these orbits are also called
energy levels.

Paragraph 5 – middle section
Instead they orbit in clouds, called orbitals, meaning that they can be

p. 219, Figure 8.5
change the word “orbitals” in the caption to “orbits”

p. 225, Figure 8.9

Change title to read “Oxygen Molecule.”

p. 311, last paragraph, last sentence
An electron microscope uses beams of electrons instead of beams of light, receiving the images with
special electron detectors.