Insignificant

[stephec]

Space is very very big!

And getting bigger every day.

 

[Chromatic]

I can only see the video unavailable black box but from what you wrote I assume it's Hawkwind, I was going to post that last night but didn't , glad you did though.

Weirdly the video shows properly in the quote of your post.

 

[Beebo]

Instead of taking 32 million years to look at the two hundred trillion stars in the universe if man kind could understand how to use the higher dimensions then some one could just look at them all at the same time or better still to save time look at them all yesterday?

Really dont think man kind will ever be able to understand time or space and our lives are so short compared to eternity it does make us feel insignificant.

the scale of the universe does lend itself to thoughts that there could well be some sort of “intelligence” operating on a totally different level to us across time and space.
Just as a mayfly which lives for 24 hours and travels a few meters in its lifetime could never have any understanding of the earth.

 

[All uphill]

Since I first read about the size of the Universe I have found is strangely comforting to realise just how insignificant I am and we all are.

Things matter to us in the here and now, but are of no importance beyond that.

So I needn't feel bad about going out on the bike again today, when there are jobs to do in the garden.

 

[cyberknight]

It's fine. Eat some fairy cake.

Don't forget your towel

 

[ClichéGuevara]

Scientists estimate that there are approximately two hundred trillion stars in the universe, most with their own group of planets or orbiting them.

If you had a telescope powerful enough to view them all and focused on each star for only 5 seconds, before moving onto the next without ever stopping for a break, it would take you 32 million years to complete the task!

I’m feeling a little insignificant.

As they've only guessed, maybe there are only a few and a lot of mirrors.

 

[byegad]

I`m sorry but I`d hand in my notice and report my employer to the health and safety exec! Imagine a day without a toilet break, let alone 32 million years! 😄

I remember many years ago on a trip over to France with some mates looking up into the heavens at a zillion stars ( approx) and I remember feeling so small and we discussed it in our drunken way ( we were 17 and it was France )
To this day I still look up to the skies on a clear night and I still feel incredibly small. It`s a kind of home truth I think.

It rather puts the 'We are special, created by a sky pixie.' theory in perspective doesn't it?

 

[Dolorous Edd]

It rather puts the 'We are special, created by a sky pixie.' theory in perspective doesn't it?

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-Qdl6Gbx0k&t=12s

 

[ColinJ]

I can only see the video unavailable black box but from what you wrote I assume it's Hawkwind, I was going to post that last night but didn't , glad you did though.

That's odd - it works for me on my laptop, phone and tablet.

Somebody has put together a long sequence of amazing photos of space with Hawkwind providing the backing track.

 

[Badger_Boom]

I think Douglas Adams got it right when he described our place in the universe in the opening lines of what some galactic scholars have called the third best book published by Megadodo in 1979:

"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western spiral arm of the galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this, at a distance of roughly ninety million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet, whose ape descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea".

 

[mudsticks]

When I Heard The Learned Astronomer

When I heard the learned astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and
measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much
applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wandered off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Looked up in perfect silence at the stars

Walt Whitman

One of many reasons I like camping up high in the dark sky mountains..

If it's clear, when arising in the night for a comfort break.

You look up, and it's like you could reach out and touch the milky way.

 

[Chromatic]

That's odd - it works for me on my laptop, phone and tablet.

Somebody has put together a long sequence of amazing photos of space with Hawkwind providing the backing track.

The black video box thing is nothing to do with anything you did, it's a phenomena that seems to happen to some of us using Apple stuff. It's totally pissed on my chips as far as the Friday night music threads go.

 

[Specialeyes]

I think Douglas Adams got it right when he described our place in the universe in the opening lines of what some galactic scholars have called the third best book published by Megadodo in 1979:

"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western spiral arm of the galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this, at a distance of roughly ninety million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet, whose ape descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea".

Hate to be *that guy* but that's the opening line of the original radio series of the same name. The introduction to the HHG within the radio series which is published by Megadodo Publications describes our insignificance even better:

"Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mind-boggling big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space. Listen…"​

After a while it settles down a bit, etc.

But the best HHG description of our insignificance has got to be the Total Perspective Vortex. (link is to a 2020 Psychology Today article called The Total Perspective Vortex and You. Does a Cosmic Perspective Threaten the Self?)

"The Total Perspective Vortex is the most savage psychic torture a sentient being can undergo.​

​

When you are put into the Vortex you are given just one momentary glimpse of the entire unimaginable infinity of creation, and somewhere in it a tiny little marker, a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot, which says "You are here"​

​

The Total Perspective Vortex derives its picture of the whole Universe on the principle of extrapolated matter analyses. Since every piece of matter in the Universe is in some way affected by every other piece of matter in the Universe, it is in theory possible to extrapolate the whole of creation – every sun, every planet, their orbits, their composition and their economic and social history from, say, one small piece of fairy cake.​

​

The man who invented the Total Perspective Vortex did so basically in order to annoy his wife."​

​

​

 

[Arrowfoot]

Instead of taking 32 million years to look at the two hundred trillion stars in the universe if man kind could understand how to use the higher dimensions then some one could just look at them all at the same time or better still to save time look at them all yesterday?

Really dont think man kind will ever be able to understand time or space and our lives are so short compared to eternity it does make us feel insignificant.

On July 20, 1969, 2 man landed on the moon. 52 years ago. It was well before the microwave was invented, the internet was conceived and wired rotary dial phone was not even common in most houses.

How did they leave earth, its atmosphere , travel over 380,000 km, land on an inhospitable planetary body and return back alive to tell the tale.

As we unfold science, we will learn more. To unfold it we must aspire.

 

[Beebo]

On July 20, 1969, 2 man landed on the moon. 52 years ago. It was well before the microwave was invented, the internet was conceived and wired rotary dial phone was not even common in most houses.

How did they leave earth, its atmosphere , travel over 380,000 km, land on an inhospitable planetary body and return back alive to tell the tale.

As we unfold science, we will learn more. To unfold it we must aspire.

Its the taking off again bit that amazes me.
They needed a huge rocket to take off from earth, but just a tiny one to escape the Moon.
And it could have so easily gone wrong.