Amazing 2 part documentary, I felt like changing majors to astrophysics after watching it. Might have to **cough**tor*cough**rent** it.
“Procrastination most often arises from a sense that there is too much to do, and hence no single aspect of the to-do worth doing. . . . Underneath this rather antic form of action-as-inaction is the much more unsettling question whether anything is worth doing at all.” Mark Kingwell
“Procrastination most often arises from a sense that there is too much to do, and hence no single aspect of the to-do worth doing. . . . Underneath this rather antic form of action-as-inaction is the much more unsettling question whether anything is worth doing at all.” Mark Kingwell
$349, but it seems to be one of the more recommended telescopes for a beginner. They have some cheaper ones of their site too if you don't want to spend that much.
$349, but it seems to be one of the more recommended telescopes for a beginner. They have some cheaper ones of their site too if you don't want to spend that much.
That thing is huge lol, I was thinking something more compact so I can bring it while I travel.
“Procrastination most often arises from a sense that there is too much to do, and hence no single aspect of the to-do worth doing. . . . Underneath this rather antic form of action-as-inaction is the much more unsettling question whether anything is worth doing at all.” Mark Kingwell
Wasn't sure where else to post this. I have a story for everyone (if you've never read it before) and its always been very inspirational to me. Enjoy
The Egg
You were on your way home when you died.
It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death.
The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me.
And that’s when you met me.
“What… what happened?” You asked. “Where am I?”
“You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. No point in mincing words.
“There was a… a truck and it was skidding…”
“Yup,” I said.
“I… I died?”
“Yup. But don’t feel bad about it. Everyone dies,” I said.
You looked around. There was nothingness. Just you and me. “What is this place?” You asked. “Is this the afterlife?”
“More or less,” I said.
“Are you god?” You asked.
“Yup,” I replied. “I’m God.”
“My kids… my wife,” you said.
“What about them?”
“Will they be all right?”
“That’s what I like to see,” I said. “You just died and your main concern is for your family. That’s good stuff right there.”
You looked at me with fascination. To you, I didn’t look like God. I just looked like some man. Or possibly a woman.
Some vague authority figure, maybe. More of a grammar school teacher than the almighty.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ll be fine. Your kids will remember you as perfect in every way. They didn’t have time to grow contempt for you.
Your wife will cry on the outside, but will be secretly relieved. To be fair, your marriage was falling apart. If it’s any consolation, she’ll feel very guilty for feeling relieved.”
“Oh,” you said. “So what happens now? Do I go to heaven or hell or something?”
“Neither,” I said. “You’ll be reincarnated.”
“Ah,” you said. “So the Hindus were right,”
“All religions are right in their own way,” I said. “Walk with me.”
You followed along as we strode through the void. “Where are we going?”
“Nowhere in particular,” I said. “It’s just nice to walk while we talk.”
“So what’s the point, then?” You asked. “When I get reborn, I’ll just be a blank slate, right? A baby. So all my experiences and everything I did in this life won’t matter.”
“Not so!” I said. “You have within you all the knowledge and experiences of all your past lives. You just don’t remember them right now.”
I stopped walking and took you by the shoulders. “Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine.
A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s hot or cold.
You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had.
“You’ve been in a human for the last 48 years, so you haven’t stretched out yet and felt the rest of your immense consciousness.
If we hung out here for long enough, you’d start remembering everything. But there’s no point to doing that between each life.”
“How many times have I been reincarnated, then?”
“Oh lots. Lots and lots. An in to lots of different lives.” I said. “This time around, you’ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD.”
“Wait, what?” You stammered. “You’re sending me back in time?”
“Well, I guess technically. Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are different where I come from.”
“Where you come from?” You said.
“Oh sure,” I explained “I come from somewhere. Somewhere else. And there are others like me. I know you’ll want to know what it’s like there, but honestly you wouldn’t understand.”
“Oh,” you said, a little let down. “But wait. If I get reincarnated to other places in time, I could have interacted with myself at some point.”
“Sure. Happens all the time. And with both lives only aware of their own lifespan you don’t even know it’s happening.”
“So what’s the point of it all?”
“Seriously?” I asked. “Seriously? You’re asking me for the meaning of life? Isn’t that a little stereotypical?”
“Well it’s a reasonable question,” you persisted.
I looked you in the eye. “The meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature.”
“You mean mankind? You want us to mature?”
“No, just you. I made this whole universe for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect.”
“Just me? What about everyone else?”
“There is no one else,” I said. “In this universe, there’s just you and me.”
You stared blankly at me. “But all the people on earth…”
“All you. Different incarnations of you.”
“Wait. I’m everyone!?”
“Now you’re getting it,” I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back.
“I’m every human being who ever lived?”
“Or who will ever live, yes.”
“I’m Abraham Lincoln?”
“And you’re John Wilkes Booth, too,” I added.
“I’m Hitler?” You said, appalled.
“And you’re the millions he killed.”
“I’m Jesus?”
“And you’re everyone who followed him.”
You fell silent.
“Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself.
Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.”
You thought for a long time.
“Why?” You asked me. “Why do all this?”
“Because someday, you will become like me. Because that’s what you are. You’re one of my kind. You’re my child.”
“Whoa,” you said, incredulous. “You mean I’m a god?”
“No. Not yet. You’re a fetus. You’re still growing. Once you’ve lived every human life throughout all time, you will have grown enough to be born.”
“So the whole universe,” you said, “it’s just…”
“An egg.” I answered. “Now it’s time for you to move on to your next life.”
And I sent you on your way.
“Procrastination most often arises from a sense that there is too much to do, and hence no single aspect of the to-do worth doing. . . . Underneath this rather antic form of action-as-inaction is the much more unsettling question whether anything is worth doing at all.” Mark Kingwell
thread is going a bit slow, if some people want to get into the details a little bit more than you can get from youtube / popsci videos there are huge vaults of videos of lecture presentations of astronomical observations and instrumentation on a few institution websites, and you can learn from the people who are working on astronomy every day.
eg. this is a video on the James Webb space telescope, the successor to the Hubble telescope, planned to be launched in 2018:
takes some concentration and focus but you know what you're getting is the real thing, and not something embellished and exaggerated by journalists and producers, like you see on television.
^^^ THIS holy sheet, I need to attend a Neil Degrasse Tyson lecture he is aboslutely amazing, yet can talk to the "average" person. This thread reminds about when I first read this... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future ( I know its wiki but it completely shattered my mind). Trying to wrap my head around the concept of far distance and time.
Edit: A few facts from an article by Neil deGrasse Tyson.
-There are 100,000 times as many stars in the universe as sounds and words ever uttered by all humans who have ever lived.
-Dark matter and dark energy make up 94 percent of the universe. We can measure their existence, yet we have no idea what they are.
-With chemical elements forged over 14 billion years in the fires of high-mass stars that exploded into space, and with these elements enriching subsequent generations of stars with carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and other basic ingredients of life itself, we are not just figuratively but literally made of stardust.
-Since light takes time to travel from one place to another, the farther out in space you look, the farther back in time you see. With our most powerful telescopes, we can observe the universe all the way back to its earliest moments -- all the way back to the Big Bang itself.
Other facts:
-It's a small world. More than 1,000 Earths would fit into Jupiter's vast sphere.
-The brightest astronomical event in historic times was the supernova of 1054, which produced the Crab Nebula. The supernova was far brighter than Venus. It was bright enough to be visible in daylight and to cast a shadow at night. We know of it through the astronomical records of China, Japan, and the Middle East
-Since the invention of the telescope, no supernovae have been observed within our galaxy. Supernovae were recorded in 1572 and 1604, while Hans Lippershey invented the telescope in 1608 and Galileo was the first to turn his telescope skyward in 1609
-The matter in the universe is so thinly dispersed that the universe can be compared with a building twenty miles long, twenty miles wide, and twenty miles high, containing only a single grain of sand.
Wow these are some mind-blowing facts. I have always been extremely interested in the universe... whether it be the stars, planets, or the reasons for its existence. I wouldn't mind becoming an astronaut one day haha.
Through the wormhole is very interesting indeed, hits on some very interesting points about not only outer space but particle physics itself would definitely recommend the watch
I thought i was natty until i found out there is creatine in beef...
-There are more stars than all of the grains of sand on earth.
I once did some calculations on how many grains of sand there are -- on the order of 10^21. Actually the question I was trying to answer was whether there were more grains of sand than atoms in a mol (6 * 10^23).
It's actually pretty close. Number of stars is estimated at between 10^22 and 10^24. That means that there's roughly a star for every atom in 200g of gold, and for each gram there are as many atoms as grains of sand on the earth.
There was stuff before the big bang. Reposted from Rogan's board. This comes from Roger Pemrose, not some crazy psudoscientist.
Professor Roger Penrose says that cosmic radiation discovered by one of NASA's telescopes is older than the Big Bang.
The researcher shows that the cosmic radiation background (CMB) formed in concentric circles that had cooled to a temperature of -270C over the 14 million years since the universe came into being.
Prof Penrose and his colleague Professor Vahe Gurzadyan of the Yerevan State University in Armenia claim to have 12 examples of the circles, some of which have five rings - meaning that the objects had five massive events in their history.
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