Sep 18
According to the Accepted Knowledge, things like this are supposed to make me feel tiny, inadequate, inconsequential, useless, pointless, and depressed. This existential despair is one of the underlying themes of contemporary culture. But I never get that feeling when I contemplate the endless vastness of the universe. Instead, I feel happy and safe. It’s like this: I realize that I am part of something bigger than myself that is still outside myself, that we will never run out of things to discover, and that if something goes wrong over this way there is still the whole rest of the universe still existing. Isn’t that great?
5 Responses to “Infinity and me”
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September 19th, 2008 at 4:16 am
No wonder they use numbers for stars and galaxies these days.
I can’t remember, but it was probably Fred Hoyle who said the chances of a scientific civilisation developing are so small that it needs something as large as the universe for it to occur. If that’s the case we’re pretty special.
September 19th, 2008 at 9:26 am
Well, until the Large Hadron Collider gets cranking then — goodbye false vacuum!
September 19th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Has the large hadron collider destroyed the world yet? Nope.
September 19th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
“Nope.”
Andrea, you know you can’t believe everything you read on the internet.
September 20th, 2008 at 2:38 am
My favourite daily stop is here.