The universe on a slider
Stuff on the millimeter scale. From The Scale of the Universe by Cary and Michael Huang
This is for those of you who, like us at psnt.net, enjoy meditatating on the Big Picture.
Alert Reader Matt Rich sent me this link today. Just click on the image above and have a great time. Make no mistake; it’s an amazing world we live in. Notice how much empty space there is, particularly at the largest and smallest scales. Kind of creepy, kind of crazy, lots of fun to imagine.
Many thanks to Matt.
There are 5 Comments to "The universe on a slider"
Ya gotta love the yottameter (“Yotta, yotta, yotta…”).
I too like the empty parts. Maybe they should be labeled “zones of ignorance” since we just don’t know much about what’s going on at those scales. I just wish they had slipped in a picture of a twinkie at about the exameter scale, so I could say “That’s a big twinkie!”.
Things like this remind me that our modern picture of the universe is positively Baroque. I just finished reading C S Lewis’ “The DIscarded Image” about the medieval worldview. As much as their picture of the world had some fanciful elements (hierarchies of angelic beings, fairies, etc) overall it is really a much simpler and plainer universe than the modern view. At first glance the modern universe seems much less coherent. I think it is actually much MORE coherent, but you have to work HARD to see it.
Todd – Right on. We can’t stand empty space – look at the inside of our home! I guess that’s why anti-matter and dark energy are so appealing. “Nature abhors a vacuum” comes to mind. We have to fill in the blanks. Maybe God doesn’t. And thanks for reminding me of “The Discarded Image.”
So. Flipping. COOL!!! Oh, this rocks. Seriously.
I wonder if we could use the empty spaces as reminders to “be still.” As a writer, I’ve learned that blank spaces and spots where things are not spoken or shared are as important as those pages filled with words. Maybe God already knows this. This just convinces me more that He is a creative God.
This is even better than your name on a grain of rice.