(and apparently) there's more where that came from..
data [information//communication] from "satellite" signals [bounce, bounce] 9,600,000,000,000 [nine quadrillion, six hundred trillion] miles away takes 1,600,000,000 [one billion, six hundred million] years to be processed, translated, and incorporated into reality [1010110010100101]
I've gone about the daze as if I've understood light years for almost my entire life now, but today (just in this last hour or so), it has dawned on me exactly what they entail. fuck, a whole sentient (linguistically-inclined?) civilization could have popped up ala Darwin missing-link stylee somewhere (if, you know, you believe there's other lifeforms someplace out there- in their various stages of evolution) in the time that it took the light from that cosmic explosion to reach the scopes of us humanoids (probassibly even farther away). light is simply information refracting atwixt our retinae. the blue glow of this monitor takes milliseconds.. gargantuan bundles of (hot, liquid!) magmatic energies (several times the size of our own sun) imploding unto itself take a couple billion years. if it takes that long for the fastest bits of energy to travel all this way, let's just hope that intelligent life isn't running on pothead time (or we may never get there//survive long enough for "them" to arrive).. I mean, when that sun imploded "we" were little homo erectii learning how to make and use fire! one point six billion years from now, I'm thinking "homo sapians" will have nuclearized in some way (either in drilling holes=life, underEarth//launching rockets=life, overEarth//projecting missiles=death, or what have you).. or perhaps, evolved/mutated/geneticized into some new classification of being.
that is what you might refer to as a brand spanking new neuropathway to my soul.. and that is one way in which relativity continues to blow my mind. this morning, I am digging on the universe and all she has to teach me.
I've gone about the daze as if I've understood light years for almost my entire life now, but today (just in this last hour or so), it has dawned on me exactly what they entail. fuck, a whole sentient (linguistically-inclined?) civilization could have popped up ala Darwin missing-link stylee somewhere (if, you know, you believe there's other lifeforms someplace out there- in their various stages of evolution) in the time that it took the light from that cosmic explosion to reach the scopes of us humanoids (probassibly even farther away). light is simply information refracting atwixt our retinae. the blue glow of this monitor takes milliseconds.. gargantuan bundles of (hot, liquid!) magmatic energies (several times the size of our own sun) imploding unto itself take a couple billion years. if it takes that long for the fastest bits of energy to travel all this way, let's just hope that intelligent life isn't running on pothead time (or we may never get there//survive long enough for "them" to arrive).. I mean, when that sun imploded "we" were little homo erectii learning how to make and use fire! one point six billion years from now, I'm thinking "homo sapians" will have nuclearized in some way (either in drilling holes=life, underEarth//launching rockets=life, overEarth//projecting missiles=death, or what have you).. or perhaps, evolved/mutated/geneticized into some new classification of being.
that is what you might refer to as a brand spanking new neuropathway to my soul.. and that is one way in which relativity continues to blow my mind. this morning, I am digging on the universe and all she has to teach me.