Immense vs. Minuscule. Inconsequential vs. Imperative
Today I ventured, virtually, into two areas that are completely fascinating. The universe and the atomic level.
One of the images from my childhood that has stuck with me through the years is one that came from a book on space that I had. It pictured the sun and showed its relative size to some of the larger stars in our universe. The sun was a smallish circle and the largest star was a wall upon which you could not even discern a curve. It amazed me that the such a large object could exist. Today I went looking for similar pictures as my son was asking me questions on space and the universe. I found this series of graphics from Gallaudet University in Washington D.C. It is absolutely incomprehensible to me to imagine objects that large. I found the factoid that there are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches and deserts on Earth just as mind blowing. Imagine that if you can.
My son and I then explored the size of the universe. How light travels at just under 9.5 trillion kilometres a year. How our galaxy is about 100,000 light years in diametre. How there are likely more than a 100 billion galaxies. How the estimated size of the observable universe is about 93 billion light years.
We then explored the minuscule world and started with cells. How each human being has an estimated 100 trillion cells (a little universe in our bodies). That is more cells than there are galaxies in the universe. How each cell is actually a fairly complex system. How the average cell is only about 10 millionths of a metre in size. How it is estimated that we have 7 x 10^27 atoms in our bodies.
It all reminded me of a thought I had as a child. I envisioned our bodies actually being universes themselves. How each cell or atom was a mini solar system and how maybe there were worlds living in our bodies. How maybe our solar system was itself in the body of some enormous creature and so on.
These numbers and the crazy theories we come up with to explain or make sense of them just go to show how relative everything is. We manage to sweat the small stuff on a daily basis yet this stuff is of complete insignificance to the universe. We sweat because we physically feel that our bodies are the whole. It all makes for an interesting balance between not caring one bit about life on earth and caring deeply about making our small world a better place - since it is all we can come close to really understanding - so long as you don't look too deep! ;-)
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