I still remember the time I saw the first Hubble Deep Field. The idea that the researchers could point this massive telescope at an empty part of the starfield, run a long exposure, and come back with a plate full of galaxies full of solar systems full of planets, while we've yet to get too far beyond the surface of our own.
A lot of people's first reaction always seems to be "we're so insignificant!" And yet, most fascinating to me is trying to reconcile the vast complexities of our planet and of humans with our physical near-nonexistence in the universe.
We have infinite complexity in approximately zero space. Kind of a strange thing to consider.
"A lot of people's first reaction always seems to be "we're so insignificant!" "
Neil deGrasse Tyson often counters this reaction by pointing out that while the universe is vast, we are made of it. So we are not simply small separate objects in a large universe, we are actually part of the physical elements that make it up and come from the same "stuff". At least that's what I gather when he says this:
"Recognize that the very molecules that make up your body, the atoms that construct the molecules, are traceable to the crucibles that were once the centers of high mass stars that exploded their chemically rich guts into the galaxy, enriching pristine gas clouds with the chemistry of life. So that we are all connected to each other biologically, to the earth chemically and to the rest of the universe atomically. That’s kinda cool! That makes me smile and I actually feel quite large at the end of that. It’s not that we are better than the universe, we are part of the universe. We are in the universe and the universe is in us.”
Feynman countered this by saying we're extremely large compared to atoms and fundamental particles, so we can "sit in the middle and enjoy everything both ways."
I remember reading a quote once and you will have to forgive me for not remembering who said it but the approximation of it was "all will be known when the scientist looking trough the telescope, see the scientist looking back at him, through the microscope on the other end". I though it was a great quote about the recursiveness about the big questions. That amazing part about it is the relevance of it, we really don't know how big or small we are it is all perspective, for all we know the universe is a singularity in another perspective. If you traveled far enough fast enough and looked back on the universe it would be a singularity, as time and distance are related so you would be looking at the universe pre-big bang or from the perspective of distance however you want to view it.
I like to think of humans as being part of the evolution of the universe. The universe has evolved to the point where it is now able to ponder its own existence.
>>A lot of people's first reaction always seems to be "we're so insignificant!"<<
I feel the emotion of this reaction, but I think the proper response to this is the one that C.S. Lewis gave: size is just a number; significance is attached to things by minds.
If you don't think tall people more important than short ones, or feet more important than eyes, why do you think stars more important than people? Certainly the stars don't think any such thing. They don't think at all. We do.
Here's a quote from his space novel "Perelandra" where this concept comes up:
"Part of him still knew that the size of a thing is its least important characteristic, that the material universe derived from the comparing and mythopoic power within him that very majesty before which he was now asked to abase himself, and that mere numbers could not over-awe us unless we lent them, from our own resources, that awfulness which they thmselves could no more supply than a banker's ledger. But this knowledge remained an abstraction. Mere bigness and loneliness overbore him."
A lot of people's first reaction always seems to be "we're so insignificant!" And yet, most fascinating to me is trying to reconcile the vast complexities of our planet and of humans with our physical near-nonexistence in the universe.
We have infinite complexity in approximately zero space. Kind of a strange thing to consider.