Known universe video
I enjoyed this video.
It takes us far beyond the space-time scales we are biologically hardwired to perceive in. (links to a previous post of mine)
Indeed, for a moment it even takes us outside space and time, so that we see the universe as this expanding sphere, from some floating, abstract, external viewpoint.
Of course, this is just a pictorial representation of the universe. There's a lot of fudging about, simply because the distances leaped are so humongous. The mapmakers have sacrificed technical precision in order to gain readability.
To give an example, at one point we see the entire earth encircled by the orbits of its artificial satellites. The orbits are rendered as glowing green rings (Matrix-green, the color of early alphanumeric code).
We see the green orbits, but we don't see the satellites themselves. This is because the satellites are orders of magnitude smaller than their orbits, so the two cannot be simultaneously visible.
If you zoom in to look at a single tree, you can no longer see the entire forest. But if you zoom out to see the entire forest, you can no longer make out the individual trees.
For the same reason, this model can only be taken in dynamically, as a video. It's like music in this respect. Music only makes sense as one event after the other. Only a God-like intelligence could take in an entire symphony at a single, timeless glance. Mortals like us must listen from beginning to end, or at least sweep our eyes over a score, from left to right.
In the case of the Known Universe video, we are not sweeping our gaze along melodic and harmonic currents; rather, we are sweeping across a spectrum of spacetime scales, from small to vast (from geological to cosmic), and back again.
A lot of human ingenuity has gone into making this dynamic representation which allows us to conceive of aspects of reality that would otherwise be inaccessible to our biologically limited sensory apparatus. (our eyes were not made to see light years, after all!)
The Facebook friend who posted this video said something like, "don't watch this unless you want to feel like a totally insignificant speck..."
But for me, it enhances my sense of being significant. Life, and conscious life in particular, are incredibly precious. As far as we know, across billions of light-years, we are the only species capable of making and reading such a map of the universe. As the sole attributors of meaning (as far as we know), we are the linchpin of the cosmos.
Click to viewIt takes us far beyond the space-time scales we are biologically hardwired to perceive in. (links to a previous post of mine)
Indeed, for a moment it even takes us outside space and time, so that we see the universe as this expanding sphere, from some floating, abstract, external viewpoint.
Of course, this is just a pictorial representation of the universe. There's a lot of fudging about, simply because the distances leaped are so humongous. The mapmakers have sacrificed technical precision in order to gain readability.
To give an example, at one point we see the entire earth encircled by the orbits of its artificial satellites. The orbits are rendered as glowing green rings (Matrix-green, the color of early alphanumeric code).
We see the green orbits, but we don't see the satellites themselves. This is because the satellites are orders of magnitude smaller than their orbits, so the two cannot be simultaneously visible.
If you zoom in to look at a single tree, you can no longer see the entire forest. But if you zoom out to see the entire forest, you can no longer make out the individual trees.
For the same reason, this model can only be taken in dynamically, as a video. It's like music in this respect. Music only makes sense as one event after the other. Only a God-like intelligence could take in an entire symphony at a single, timeless glance. Mortals like us must listen from beginning to end, or at least sweep our eyes over a score, from left to right.
In the case of the Known Universe video, we are not sweeping our gaze along melodic and harmonic currents; rather, we are sweeping across a spectrum of spacetime scales, from small to vast (from geological to cosmic), and back again.
A lot of human ingenuity has gone into making this dynamic representation which allows us to conceive of aspects of reality that would otherwise be inaccessible to our biologically limited sensory apparatus. (our eyes were not made to see light years, after all!)
The Facebook friend who posted this video said something like, "don't watch this unless you want to feel like a totally insignificant speck..."
But for me, it enhances my sense of being significant. Life, and conscious life in particular, are incredibly precious. As far as we know, across billions of light-years, we are the only species capable of making and reading such a map of the universe. As the sole attributors of meaning (as far as we know), we are the linchpin of the cosmos.