How does the understanding for the size of the world change one's thinking?
What was it like living on the Easter Island, the world a place you can walk around within a few days?
When Einstein developed general relativity, we did not know there were other galaxies beyond the Milky Way.
Most people today don't know how vast the Universe - and yet my own thinking is deeply shaped by being an astrophysicist, by the fact that we are just a tiny memory of a speckle of dust.
The post above ⬆️ was triggered by my morning lecture - I try (and get distracted; and then try again) to spend the mornings reading something - preferably some bits of interesting info, crumbs for the brain hamsters, to have them happily munching instead of running in their little wheels of doom.
This book is a bit challenging - not a lot of info, so I end up getting more background online. But I'm learning a ton.
I wonder how many people, when first time really confronted with the vastness of deep space and deep time¹, fall to the extremes of either giving up caring about anything or the polar opposite - trying to make the world a better place for everyone.
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¹I myself still struggle much more with the concept of deep time.
@MurmeltHier that's a REALLY good one! I'd like to think that the deep caring by far outweights the other alternative, at least I haven't encountered a lot of people who did not care and who had a feeling (as much as one can) for the size of the Universe. But that may be my bias.
There is the idea that The Sublime makes one care more and the vastness (and beauty) of the Universe is to me one of the perfect example of it, something I try to appeal to when speaking about astro to the pubkic.
@vicgrinberg I remember when Hubble sent the first pictures of the deep field camera. I had a slow internet connection 1995, but downloaded the full size pictures, line by line, by line. 😂
When I saw this, for a short while I truly believed this changes everything, for all of us, for the better. No more wars, no more fights about religion, all this crap would be a thing for history books, the future would be bright, enlightened people if you will.
Boy was I wrong!
@vicgrinberg One thing that changed in my thinking after realizing the size of the universe: if there is an infinite number of galaxies and solar systems, then there must be other life forms out there. But at the same time these distances also guarantee that we will never "meet" them.
To me the age of the universe compared to the human existence is also quite overwhelming
There is a nice site "If the moon were only 1 pixel" that shows how huge our ("tiny") solar system already is.
Dr. Victoria Grinberg
MurmeltHier
Bart Smit / ⲁⲗⲍⲓⲙⲟⲛ
Truls (Klarname)
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Richard Hendricks