View Full Version : Scale of the Universe
whiterabbit05
09-22-10, 00:04
Let the mind boggling-ing begin:
http://primaxstudio.com/stuff/scale_of_universe.swf
That is pretty cool. but could have done without the music.
variablebinary
09-22-10, 07:08
Grr Double tap
variablebinary
09-22-10, 07:09
You really want to feel small and insignificant?
Watch this whole GIF and realize how minuscule we and our planet really are
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_sG6Wrk144Qs/Ry67_o_qN2I/AAAAAAAAAS8/rqmwybiz1LY/s1600-h/EARTH+comparative+size.gif
FromMyColdDeadHand
09-22-10, 07:16
You really want to feel small and insignificant?
Watch this whole GIF and realize how minuscule we and our planet really are
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_sG6Wrk144Qs/Ry67_o_qN2I/AAAAAAAAAS8/rqmwybiz1LY/s1600-h/EARTH+comparative+size.gif
Canis Majores? Big Dog?
I thought a Uranus joke was coming when it started.
The difference between quantum and atomic scales was larger than I had thought. We are closer to atoms than atoms are to quantum level scales.
Absolutely fantastic, love this thing.
You really want to feel small and insignificant?
Watch this whole GIF and realize how minuscule we and our planet really are
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_sG6Wrk144Qs/Ry67_o_qN2I/AAAAAAAAAS8/rqmwybiz1LY/s1600-h/EARTH+comparative+size.gif
This is also spectacular. Great finds.
I have always been interested in all things space. This is my latest meteorite, a stony-iron pallasite.
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b32/Safetyhit/P9220569.jpg
These crystals formed 4.5 billion years ago and have been sitting just as they are ever since. That much time is incomprehensible, so it just fascinates me beyond words.
These kinds of things fascinate me. I have often thought about going back to school for a PhD in Cosmology. Sadly I keep putting it off.
A great thread; quantum mechanics is endlessly interesting to ponder. The multiverse is a weird and fascinating place/thing.
Our existence is quite fascinating and beauitful.
montanadave
09-22-10, 10:55
One of the most humbling images I have ever seen was a Hubble Deep Field photograph representing a "keyhole" view of the universe which contained an assortment of at least 1,500 galaxies each containing anywhere from ten to several hundred billion individual stars. The image in the book I have is virtually identical to the one in the link below.
http://www.astro.cornell.edu/academics/courses/astro2201/hubble_deep.htm
The book caption indicated the actual field of view represented in the photograph was a portion of the night sky comparable to a dime at a distance of 75 feet!
The cosmos is astounding. The various phenomena, such as pulsars, quasars, black holes, and neutron stars are simply mind blowing. I took several astronomy classes at UT(not required in my major, much to my parents chagrin) which left me with an appreciation of what's out there. Realizing General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics can't explain what the other can makes one realize how much we really don't know. No plausible Grand Unified Theory means we have much, much more to learn. What else is out there?
When the first shots from Hubble came back, and people realized those points of light weren't stars, but galaxies, things changed.
What's even better is that the universe is incomprehensibly large; and expanding.
As pointed out, getting a degree in Astronomy would be great. Just don't count on getting employed. Those that are gainfully employed in the field have a super job.
Kind of puts things into perspective.
If the entire solar system we live in was to disappear tomorrow and Humanity was gone. The loss to the universe would be less than the loss of a single grain of sand to a beach.
While our lives are important to us, they are not really much to the universe as a whole.
6933; M-theory is getting ever so close to a unified theory of all things; it is very interesting and in depth to say the least.
As insignificant and small as we all appear to be in this physical universe, we are much more connected and vastly more important/grand than I think we could/will ever realize.
Another crazy thing comprehend is we know more about the vast universe around us/outside our planet than we do about our own home planet!!!! Just think of all of the mysteries here; just beneath our very feet, in our oceans; in dimensions too large and too small for us to comprehend right on top of us/below us, and in the subterranean/interior world. And thats not even getting into the dimensions/universe of our minds & souls...
Just boggles the mind to think of how much STUFF is out there and inside of us as well; how infinitely paked together it all is, and how we perceive it to be.
Crazy!:cool::eek::p:D
Is it just me or is it easier to comprehend BIG than it is to comprehend small?
I can grasp the concept of something massive far easier than subatomic and smaller things.
I saw a comparison similar to the OP but it was on a left to right slider with some really amazing pictures. I'll try and find it again as I love this kind of stuff.
Small I can comprehend. The vastness of space is more than just big though. So my brain has a hard time with it sometimes..
THCDDM4:
I think that is the normal hubris of humanity. It ties in with the whole "humanity made in gods image" idea.
But I personally don't believe it.
Small I can comprehend. The vastness of space is more than just big though. So my brain has a hard time with it sometimes..
THCDDM4:
I think that is the normal hubris of humanity. It ties in with the whole "humanity made in gods image" idea.
But I personally don't believe it.
Niether do I; I was not making any comment regarding religion, just that when I think of how insignificant we seem to be in this mish mash of chaotic craziness; I can't help but think every single tiny particle and molecule is in its own way grand an infinitely important to every other piece of the puzzle. Take away one piece of the puzzle, the puzzle is no more. It's kind of what others were saying when it is easier to comprehend BIG than it is little ; so it is also harder to comprehend how something so small could have any true meaning in such a large universe/existance; but think of all the small things that we would think insignificant if we didn't accidentally find a use for them, like yeast, atoms, and an endless plethora of others.
We interpret ourselves as "small" and "insignificant" in this universe; but is anything really "small" or "insignificant"? I believe not; regardless of religion or faith.
Niether do I; I was not making any comment regarding religion, just that when I think of how insignificant we seem to be in this mish mash of chaotic craziness; I can't help but think every single tiny particle and molecule is in its own way grand an infinitely important to every other piece of the puzzle. Take away one piece of the puzzle, the puzzle is no more. It's kind of what others were saying when it is easier to comprehend BIG than it is little ; so it is also harder to comprehend how something so small could have any true meaning in such a large universe/existance; but think of all the small things that we would think insignificant if we didn't accidentally find a use for them, like yeast, atoms, and an endless plethora of others.
We interpret ourselves as "small" and "insignificant" in this universe; but is anything really "small" or "insignificant"? I believe not; regardless of religion or faith.
I am not saying it necessarily has to do with religion. It just seemed the most obvious example at the time.
I see your point. I just come more from the "who the hell knows" train of though. 14 billion years of development are just the start of our universe. Maybe we are an early race, maybe we are a late one. Even if we are one of the first to develop what are the chances of ever finding another race out there?
That is one of the amazing part of it all. You could be right, I could be right, we could both be very very wrong. Who knows. If we ever do have the answer it will be long after we are dust.
I am not saying it necessarily has to do with religion. It just seemed the most obvious example at the time.
I see your point. I just come more from the "who the hell knows" train of though. 14 billion years of development are just the start of our universe. Maybe we are an early race, maybe we are a late one. Even if we are one of the first to develop what are the chances of ever finding another race out there?
That is one of the amazing part of it all. You could be right, I could be right, we could both be very very wrong. Who knows. If we ever do have the answer it will be long after we are dust.
I tend to agree with the "Who the hel knows" notion; but modify it with my understanding that every single idea that is, exists somewhere somehow, someway. For instance I believe this existence is a simple "idea", that just happened and everything else has been a subsequent "idea" from that point. So I believe that we are both wrong, and both right; in some form somewhere somhow someway. My studies into mathematics & quantum mechanics was where I picked up this ideal. Really if you seek to solve a problem, you can't just find one singular answer, you have to find every single way you cannot answer the equation and every single way it can be answered; much like our universe; I believe every single thing that can happen is happening, regardless of how we may see things. For instance every time I get out of bed, every single possible out come of that instance is being played out in some place in existence, some fothem I get right up, some fo them I fall over, somem I turn into gas and escape into the atmosphere, some I never get up at all.
I for one believe in a god; but only because I believe we manifested this being through our ideas/philosophies of why we are here; rather than it being the other way around. We created god in our form, god is not all powerfull, ubiquitous or omnipresent; I believe we are; we just tend to interpret things a bit out of focus so to speak...
Time is not a straight line or a circle; it is undefined and ubiquitous; every single idea that is spawned; spawns a fresh off-shoot dimension of time/space.
The universe is expanding quite rapidly, as is our comprehension of it. Just think, consciousness is a very new thing compared to the accepted life of the universe; what will/could be next; and what has already been.
I surely love the journey!
I surely love the journey!
Ain't that the truth.
I have many more thoughts on Sentience and Sapience along the lines of what you are saying. Of course that gets beyond the Cosmology discussion of this thread. And I hate to derail it to much.
Hard to believe that just a few hundred years ago people were persecuted for trying to have a better understanding of the universe. Even harder to believe that they still are in some parts of the world.
Ain't that the truth.
I have many more thoughts on Sentience and Sapience along the lines of what you are saying. Of course that gets beyond the Cosmology discussion of this thread. And I hate to derail it to much.
Hard to believe that just a few hundred years ago people were persecuted for trying to have a better understanding of the universe. Even harder to believe that they still are in some parts of the world.
And even worse yet is science derailing itself by trying to stick to "defined" & "accepted" notions in order to be in power of information; when a new idea comes along it is torn to shreds, and the person who conjured the idea is totally disenfranchised and discredited in the science community. It is very frustrating that science is much like religion in that it seeks to control through power of knowledge and information. If you question the accepted knowledge, you are a heathen, not a scientist at all but some hobbysist that has no idea of what they speak. I always love how new ideas are never met with subjective criticisms; they just attack the person who had the idea and make them into an idiot who no one should isten to.
For every step forward we take, we self induce a thousand steps backward. Just think of all we would know by now if we didn't have to control one another through knowledge & have such large egos getting in the way of our persuit to understand ourselves.
Sorry to derail the thread, I'm done now.
I love the hubble/nasa web-site/page where you can view all of the photos hubble has taken over the years; it is just breathtaking. It will be sad when hubble is no more.
I must disagree again, to an extent. The peer review process is extremely and harsh difficult for a reason. New data and scientific hypothesis must be put through the ringer. There must be no question about the validity of the data.
For instance, a few years ago a couple guys claimed to have perfected cold fusion. On the surface the science looked good. but once it was town into by the scientific community it turned out to be a fraud. Same with some of the "Ancient missing links" some were mistakes, others were from people looking to make a buck. But without the extremely harsh peer review process they would have been accepted.
A scientist who makes a mistake is not ostracized. Not unless he makes constant mistakes. A scientist who falsifies data however is treated like a pariah and generally never accepted again.
Two great examples of this are Hawking and Behe.
Hawking has been wrong many times. Sometimes peer review finds this, sometimes his own theories prove him wrong. Both ways it was just theories that were wrong. Data proved him incorrect. He is still considered one of the most brilliant people alive today.
Behe on the other hand falsified data to try to push his own agenda. he is laughed at within the scientific community. Not because he was wrong. but because he was wrong, knew he was wrong, and tried to lie about it to push his own beliefs.
I must disagree again, to an extent. The peer review process is extremely and harsh difficult for a reason. New data and scientific hypothesis must be put through the ringer. There must be no question about the validity of the data.
For instance, a few years ago a couple guys claimed to have perfected cold fusion. On the surface the science looked good. but once it was town into by the scientific community it turned out to be a fraud. Same with some of the "Ancient missing links" some were mistakes, others were from people looking to make a buck. But without the extremely harsh peer review process they would have been accepted.
A scientist who makes a mistake is not ostracized. Not unless he makes constant mistakes. A scientist who falsifies data however is treated like a pariah and generally never accepted again.
Two great examples of this are Hawking and Behe.
Hawking has been wrong many times. Sometimes peer review finds this, sometimes his own theories prove him wrong. Both ways it was just theories that were wrong. Data proved him incorrect. He is still considered one of the most brilliant people alive today.
Behe on the other hand falsified data to try to push his own agenda. he is laughed at within the scientific community. Not because he was wrong. but because he was wrong, knew he was wrong, and tried to lie about it to push his own beliefs.
I'm not referring to the peer review process in my disdain for the way science controls knowledge; I agree with the peer review process as well the scientific process. What I do not agree with is discrediting good scientists without even looking intot the science itself. For instance I am very interested in ou to of place artifacts. Artifacts that are unexplainable; most scientists just dismiss these artifacts without even studying them at all, let alone using the scientific process to determine the accuracy and legitimacy of the findings. I can think of countless times the Smithsonian or Nasa, or others have just black-balled findings because they did not fit into the accepted ideas of what shoul dbe; and that hurts science as a whole; since if their view of the world is flawe, then so is the science.
One instance is Werner Von Braun and the first space rockets of the US. We figured out during these experiments that our view of accepted gravity is wrong. We discovered torsion fields; which completely negated Newtons Principia Mathematica; yet newtons theory is still the gold standard of all theories correct? And very little light has been shed on to this new science, and new way of understanding gravity. Wouldn't we all benefit from knowing a more complete theory of gravity?
There are plenty of lies and distortion used to maintain the status quo; and it is very sad. Just look at groups such as "Sense about science".
Most all of our huge realizations of the universe have come from fringe science/scientists; yet the mainstream always seeks to derail fringe scientists findings by discredting the person, instead of discrediting/disproving or debating the scientific findings.
http://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/92prom.html
I'm not playing witch hunter here, just that mainstream accepted science is a powerful tool of control, and those that rock the boat get sent out to sea more oft than not...
Just think of how much evidence was black-balled regarding "global Warming"; the scientists were releasing findings that supported GW and suppressing others that did not. It goes on in every field of science there is.
Wow... just did some "light reading" on Torsion fields and got a nose bleed! Thanks a lot! ;)
Wow... just did some "light reading" on Torsion fields and got a nose bleed! Thanks a lot! ;)
Now try reading up on string theory. :suicide:
M-Theory will give you an aneuryism!
FromMyColdDeadHand
09-22-10, 15:36
I re-read "Schroedinger's Cat" and "Schroedinger's Kitten's" when I want a little brain tingle. :blink:
I still can't wrap my head around a totally explainable, determinate universe and free will. Physicists seem to try to get everything down to an equation or cause-effect, but when you do this where does that leave free will? If you can predict where everything was or will be, what does that mean to be a sentient being?
b
I just typed the letter 'b', I thought of a letter and chose 'b'. Feynman diagram that.
I re-read "Schroedinger's Cat" and "Schroedinger's Kitten's" when I want a little brain tingle. :blink:
I still can't wrap my head around a totally explainable, determinate universe and free will. Physicists seem to try to get everything down to an equation or cause-effect, but when you do this where does that leave free will? If you can predict where everything was or will be, what does that mean to be a sentient being?
b
I just typed the letter 'b', I thought of a letter and chose 'b'. Feynman diagram that.
Maybe you don't understand Schroedinger's Cat then. The very act, ability if you will, of seeing into the unknown changes all future events related to the subject... because you looked at it. That's the thing: theoretically, you can't look into the future, because doing so would change it and make it not the future. Looking at the cat decides its fate instantaneously, whereas the outcome might have been different if it wasn't interfered with.
I believe in free will and don't believe that one can look into the future, but it is ironic to note that even the advocates of quantum physics realize that looking into the future only reinforces that you can't find out what will happen without changing it. If that isn't an ordained aspect of the universe, that the future can't be predicted, then I don't know of any better argument for free will than that.
There are particles (I don't remember which type) that actually react differently just by being viewed.
Now there is something that boggles the mind. The mere passive act of viewing something causes it to react in a different way. :help:
No, no, no! There are 10 dimensions, not 11.:D
I still like to re-read A Brief History of Time once in a while. One of my college physics profs. turned me onto it and I still love it.
And fu** it; Pluto is a planet!
FromMyColdDeadHand
09-22-10, 17:31
Maybe you don't understand Schroedinger's Cat then. The very act, ability if you will, of seeing into the unknown changes all future events related to the subject... because you looked at it. That's the thing: theoretically, you can't look into the future, because doing so would change it and make it not the future. Looking at the cat decides its fate instantaneously, whereas the outcome might have been different if it wasn't interfered with.
I believe in free will and don't believe that one can look into the future, but it is ironic to note that even the advocates of quantum physics realize that looking into the future only reinforces that you can't find out what will happen without changing it. If that isn't an ordained aspect of the universe, that the future can't be predicted, then I don't know of any better argument for free will than that.
Collapsing the wave function. I actually had that as my sig line for awhile "I've been collapsing wave functions all day long, and am I tired." I see it as not so much that you are looking into the future, but that quantum level events are not determined until you look at them.
Moose-Knuckle
09-22-10, 21:10
The more we advance as a species the more we are finding out that we really don't know as much as we thought.
You really want to feel small and insignificant?
Watch this whole GIF and realize how minuscule we and our planet really are
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_sG6Wrk144Qs/Ry67_o_qN2I/AAAAAAAAAS8/rqmwybiz1LY/s1600-h/EARTH+comparative+size.gif
Happy Thought For The Day...
If the 4.5 Billion year history of the planet Earth was a 24 hour clock, complex life did not occur (The Cambrian explosion) until 10pm (530 million years ago) or 2200, Dinosaurs did not occur until 11PM or 2300 and were snuffed out by an asteroid around 11:40pm or 2340 and modern humans (Homo Sapiens) first arrived in the last two seconds of that 24 hour clock.
And if that doesn't make you feel kinda unimportant consider this.
The Earth "peaked" about 300 million years ago.
The planet is 4.5 billion years old, life on Earth is at least 3.4 billion years old and the last animals will probably die out 500 million years from now. Species diversity was much higher in the past and our planet is actually in it's middle to old age.
The Earth is currenty in decline.
There now doncha feel better?
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