July 02, 2006

• The Total Perspective Vortex has proven that in an infinite universe the one thing sentient life cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion.
• Sooo, we are small? I already knew this.
• The Total Perspective Vortex has proven that in an infinite universe the one thing sentient life cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion. Tell me, now who is the most important person in the universe? : D /douglas adams
• Just remember when you're feeling rather small and insecure, How amazingly unlikely is your birth; And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space, 'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth!
• Makes that weight I've been meaning to lose seem somewhat inconsequential. *Thus speaketh the woman with her own gravational field.
• I never knew Uranus was so big.
• How amazingly unlikely is your birth; And how much more likely you were to have been a Chinese farmer, historically.
• How'd they get them to sit on the floor like that?
• i think the arcturians organized the whole thing, and bullied the other planets into sitting still. damned insecure, those arcturians.
• Uranus is big, isn't it, Ralph?
• Man, that makes me want to pour myself a foregin on the rocks. Actually when my son is older I plan to set up a park-sized model of the solar system and let him get an idea of how vast the distances are.
• and how much more likely you were to have been a Chinese farmer... yeah, or a beetle...this link is cool and I think the original creator of those models did an admirable job also of making the planets beautiful.
• Hey, hey, where are Saturn and Jupiter's rings?
• The rings were recently cleaned with Comet©. Or maybe it had something to do with Certified Space Technology ?
• Chaos sorta diminishes the importance of spatial superiority.
• The Sagan Planet Walk is a cool thing in my home town. At the center of town is a monument of the sun, and then the whole solar system is placed, to scale, around town. Each planet is shown inside a lucite block at its scale to the mini sun, and you can walk the whole thing to get an idea how distant each planet is. It's pretty cool.
• Did I mention it's cool?
• Hi Gyan!
• Man, I get so tired of having to walk to Pluto. And there's no way I want to sit around Uranus.
• Another, possibly originaler, version. Also includes Earth vs. other small planets and Antares vs. the (itty bitty) Sol. That last blew me away. A star big enough to encompass the orbit of Mars... but less than 20 solar masses. Neat, this "universe" thing.
• "Space is really big" as Douglas Adams would put it. However I like Bill Brysons descriptions using peas: “On a diagram of the solar system to scale, with the earth reduced to about the diameter of a pea, Jupiter would be over 300 metres away and Pluto would be 2 ½ kilometres distant (and about the size of a bacterium so you wouldn’t be able to see it anyway)”. And “Astronomers today believe there are perhaps 140 billion galaxies in the visible universe… if galaxies were frozen peas, it would be enough to fill a large auditorium, the Royal Albert Hall.”
• Yea, that's all OK and dandy if galaxies are frozen peas, but what if they're artichokes? Hunh? What then? You scientist-types think you know everything.
• Say, is that a piece of fairly cake? I'm really hungry.
• mmmm artichokes....
• I think it's more like raisin bread. Y'know, the raisins moving outward with the dough as it expands. Whenever anyone says "artichoke," my Mom always says "Yeah, I arti (oughta) choke you!"
• Oh, and what Medusa said.
• the universe is raisin bread! I love it
• But the Great Question is: Baked or Half-baked?