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.
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.
Dr. Victoria Grinberg
MurmeltHier