Lets talk about Size

[brothaice]

The thing I believe most people have a difficult time grasping is the concept of size. I think this is because we can only describe things comparatively, (ie. a watermelon is smaller than a car, a apple is smaller than a watermelon). So what happens when we try to describe the size of the earth? How would you do it? Would you say, "well, it's large because its multiple times over larger than the moon, which is itself large." Or might you say, it is small "because other planets and stars are much bigger." -That’s true, other stars are much bigger, including the Sun. Many known stars are much larger than the Sun even. We know that yellow stars emit a vast amount of light, obviously ours does a pretty good job of lighting up our little section of the galaxy here, which is huge by Earth standards. When we look up at the sky on a clear light, what we see is billions and billions of these stars. Why then isn’t the entirety of the universe illuminated at all times from every direction? We are well aware of the energy that these giants emit. One theory is that the stars are so far away, their light actually hasn't reached us yet. Lets consider this for a moment, if this is true, the distance of these stars must be seemingly immeasurable. With this in mind, this is a picture taken by Voyager I sometime in the 90's:


There we are. Floating along seemingly aimlessly.

Humans boast of being the superior beings in the Universe, without realizing their utter insignificance in the vast stage of the cosmos.

I was just wondering what thoughts this invokes into some of you guys? I would say it's disheartening for sure. But I would argue that's all the more reason to examine something carefully

I wanted to add this quote from a book by Carl Sagan, titled The Pale Blue Dot

“The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors, so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.”

Stephen King also alludes to this theme in the series I am reading of his right now, which may have something to do with why I decided to make this thread.
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