Today I got to thinking about something I had heard many years ago, and decided it might make for interesting reading. Most of what I am going to relate comes straight from Carl Sagen and Cosmos.
Very few people can relate to the number one million, much less billions or trillions, so we are going to take a different approach.
Pretend for a moment you are on the beach, and take a small pinch of sand in your hand…how many individual grains of sand do you think are in that one small pinch? Now, think of all the stars you see in the night sky, all are suns like our own, with the exception of a couple planets from our own solar system you may be able to see. Those suns may or may not have planets and moons forming a solar system around them, but for now, we are not concerned with anything except the suns themselves.
Using one grain of sand to represent one of those suns, how big of a pile of sand do you think you would have to represent the suns just in our galaxy? When I have asked people that, I got guesses like a teaspoon full, a cup full, a gallon jar full….but the correct answer is you would have an Olympic sized swimming pool filled about ¾ full.
Let’s take things a little further now. Using the same system of one grain of sand to represent one sun, let’s see if you can guess how big of a pile a sand we would have to represent all the suns in the known universe?
The answer is a pile of sand about the size of the planet earth. I have long ago forgotten how many trillion stars there are out there, but the grain of sand thing I can relate too.
Of late, I have been hearing that science thinks there may be other universes. How many more suns, and solar systems will that add? And for a quite a few years now, even the ultra-conservative scientific community has been saying that life on other planets is probably the norm, rather than the exception.
With that in mind, can anyone still believe that earth is the only planet where there is intelligent life?
Something else I have become interested in the last few years is theories of other dimensions and that everything is happening NOW…..as you read this, the first man is being launched into space, President Lincoln is giving his Gettysburg address and Christ is being nailed to the cross, it is all happening now, at this very moment.
One thing I can say for those theories is that it would explain much about hauntings and ghosts. I’ve never been able to figure out why a ghost would wear clothing.
Anyway, something to think about.
Very few people can relate to the number one million, much less billions or trillions, so we are going to take a different approach.
Pretend for a moment you are on the beach, and take a small pinch of sand in your hand…how many individual grains of sand do you think are in that one small pinch? Now, think of all the stars you see in the night sky, all are suns like our own, with the exception of a couple planets from our own solar system you may be able to see. Those suns may or may not have planets and moons forming a solar system around them, but for now, we are not concerned with anything except the suns themselves.
Using one grain of sand to represent one of those suns, how big of a pile of sand do you think you would have to represent the suns just in our galaxy? When I have asked people that, I got guesses like a teaspoon full, a cup full, a gallon jar full….but the correct answer is you would have an Olympic sized swimming pool filled about ¾ full.
Let’s take things a little further now. Using the same system of one grain of sand to represent one sun, let’s see if you can guess how big of a pile a sand we would have to represent all the suns in the known universe?
The answer is a pile of sand about the size of the planet earth. I have long ago forgotten how many trillion stars there are out there, but the grain of sand thing I can relate too.
Of late, I have been hearing that science thinks there may be other universes. How many more suns, and solar systems will that add? And for a quite a few years now, even the ultra-conservative scientific community has been saying that life on other planets is probably the norm, rather than the exception.
With that in mind, can anyone still believe that earth is the only planet where there is intelligent life?
Something else I have become interested in the last few years is theories of other dimensions and that everything is happening NOW…..as you read this, the first man is being launched into space, President Lincoln is giving his Gettysburg address and Christ is being nailed to the cross, it is all happening now, at this very moment.
One thing I can say for those theories is that it would explain much about hauntings and ghosts. I’ve never been able to figure out why a ghost would wear clothing.
Anyway, something to think about.
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