Hmm... that's an interesting perspective you don't get everyday eh?

A interesting video on Youtube I saw which shows you just how small we are compared to VY Canis Majoris, the largest star known to man. It's estimated that it would take light 8 hours to travel around its surface, and that if it was in our solar system it would reach as far as Saturn...

 

 

 

 

 

 

That's a great video. The final comparison between VY Canis Majoris and our Sun boggles the mind!

Carl Sagan, is truly one of the great cosmologists of our time.

 

 

 

His book Cosmos, is in my opinion one of the best books ever written.

 

 

Hah, I'm reading that book right now, it's a fantastic read.

 

 

 

It's best to pick, and keep ourselves concerned with, a single scale and then only think about objects appropriate to that scale. Otherwise you will end up with these misleading ideas that a human being is a massively complex structure too large to comprehend (if you look in terms of atoms and picometres), or an insignificant dot that doesn't matter (if you look in terms of galaxies and light years). Remember, there is no standard viewpoint, so we can get away with this.

 

Human beings are only relevant on the right scale, so let's either keep them relevant or not think about them at all.

We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

 

 

 

When I read this all I could picture was Morgan Freeman. We're small sure, but we're good small. \

We ARE important. We are the most intelligent beings found so far in this known universe, and we continue to grow and gain knowledge exponentially.

 

 

 

Yes, we're the most intelligent beings found in this universe so far BY US, how can you possibly prove that there is not an alien race somewhere that is incredibly more intelligent than us, that have perhaps even already found us but just left us alone because of our immense stupidity?

 

Who cares, though? Why worry whether or not there is or isn't? I see no harm in thinking about it, or for their to be studies, but as I am neither a spaceman, alien, or researcher, I tend to leave those things to flights of fancy or science fiction.

There are always things way bigger than us, and always things way smaller than us. Trying to think in terms of anything but one's own level simply serves to either trivialize the matter (thinking in terms of galaxy), or overinflate it (thinking in terms of a proton). You CAN'T COMPREHEND at those levels, so why in God's name are you trying? To confuse yourself for the fun of it? Sheer boredom? No girlfriend? What?

 

 

 

I really don't think that thinking in these terms does any harm. It's not that people are trying to get an absolute perspective on how big they are in relation to stuff so they can categorise everything on some kind of logarithmic scale in their lives. It's just innocent musings that serve to humble us. It wasn't that long ago that the human race thought that it was at the centre of the Universe and that there wasn't much apart from the Sun and lots of little dots stuck on a background canvas in the sky. Getting an occasional perspective on our true place in the Universe does no harm, at the very least it serves to educate people about astronomical scales. And at best it can give us a new perspective on our lives.

I really doesn't do anything for me. Yeah, the universe is big, woopti-doo?

I have the whole quote on my wall in my bedroom.

There are always things way bigger than us, and always things way smaller than us. Trying to think in terms of anything but one's own level simply serves to either trivialize the matter (thinking in terms of galaxy), or overinflate it (thinking in terms of a proton). You CAN'T COMPREHEND at those levels, so why in God's name are you trying? To confuse yourself for the fun of it? Sheer boredom? No girlfriend? What?

 

 

 

I really don't think that thinking in these terms does any harm. It's not that people are trying to get an absolute perspective on how big they are in relation to stuff so they can categorise everything on some kind of logarithmic scale in their lives. It's just innocent musings that serve to humble us. It wasn't that long ago that the human race thought that it was at the centre of the Universe and that there wasn't much apart from the Sun and lots of little dots stuck on a background canvas in the sky. Getting an occasional perspective on our true place in the Universe does no harm, at the very least it serves to educate people about astronomical scales. And at best it can give us a new perspective on our lives.

 

Hm, fair enough. I suppose that as someone who's always found anthropocenticism laughable I just find it a waste of time. I.e., it does not and can not give me a new perspective, because the perspective it would have to offer is one I already have.

How does the quote motivate you? Makes me feel hopeless :? I mean, what it's basically saying is that everything we work for is just to become more meaningful on the meaningless blue spec in the universe that we call home.

If you want to talk about crazy distances, I think the electron and proton in an atom is better. If the proton was the size of a marble, the electron would be the radius of your hair. On top of that in an hydrogen atom with one proton and one electron if teh proton is a size of a marble and the electron is the width of your hair te first shell would extend to two miles away from the proton. Sorry if that doesn't make sense I was drinking tonight but I am pretty sure I got the figures right. Point is there is a [cabbage] ton of empty space between the electron and the proton, except the electron is kind of everywhere at once and nowhere at once if I understand the Heisenburg uncertainty principle right.

If you want to talk about crazy distances, I think the electron and proton in an atom is better. If the proton was the size of a marble, the electron would be the radius of your hair. On top of that in an hydrogen atom with one proton and one electron if teh proton is a size of a marble and the electron is the width of your hair te first shell would extend to two miles away from the proton. Sorry if that doesn't make sense I was drinking tonight but I am pretty sure I got the figures right. Point is there is a [cabbage] ton of empty space between the electron and the proton, except the electron is kind of everywhere at once and nowhere at once if I understand the Heisenburg uncertainty principle right.

 

 

 

Are you familiar with the 'Electric Universe' theory? It has a long way to go but it has a damn good go at explaining stuff like spin (something which isn't really explained in mainstream Physics), and the workings of atoms and sub atomic structures etc.

Here is a website regarding the Electric Universe theory...

 

 

 

http://www.kronia.com/electric.html

 

 

 

And here's some more info, touching a bit on spin and supposed physical evidence thought to give credence to the theory...

 

 

 

http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2008/ ... mbrero.htm

Best godamn unit of measurement must be the Beard Second.

 

 

 

As the name suggests, its the length a beard grows in a second. 5X10^-9.

 

 

 

5 Nanometers.

Here is a website regarding the Electric Universe theory...

 

 

 

http://www.kronia.com/electric.html

 

 

 

And here's some more info, touching a bit on spin and supposed physical evidence thought to give credence to the theory...

 

 

 

http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2008/ ... mbrero.htm

 

 

 

Sounds interesting, I'll check that out.