Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Need Space?



If I were to scale up an atom’s nucleus so it was the size of a marble, would you be able to guess the comparative size of an electron encircling that nucleus? Or how far apart they’d be?


This question is really about space. How much is there in what we perceive as solid objects and how comprehensive is our spatial grasp?


The electron in this scenario would be the thickness of a human hair.


Given this scale, I figured the electron would be a couple inches away from the marble-sized nucleus. Seemed reasonable. After all electrons whizzing about can’t be too far away or else we wouldn’t perceive objects as solid. Could we?


Turns out the electron is 10,000 feet away!


Next time you look across Kempenfelt Bay (roughly 1 mile), think about the distance from shore to shore. Picture placing a marble on the one side then picture a pin head sized electron twice the distance away encircling/vibrating and giving everything we know density.


Amazing.


This epiphany proved useful to me when I visited the Natural History Museum in Manhattan. They have a similar scale-comprehension for the known Universe...and I was in awe.


They had this immense sphere (Hayden Sphere pictured above) that was 87 feet across (volume of 10 avg. homes).


Using that sphere to represent the known Universe (13.5 billion light years across) then a grain of sand inside it would represent a collection of galaxies known as the Virgo Cluster (home to our galaxy).


If you were to then blow up that grain of sand (Virgo Cluster) to the size of that 87 foot sphere...then another grain of sand within that new sphere would represent our entire Milky Way Galaxy (a galaxy containing 100 Billion stars).


Scaling up that newest grain of sand (Milky Way) to the size of that 87 foot sphere...then our entire solar system would be a grain of sand inside of that sphere.


Finally, the earth would be a grain of sand within our solar system blown up to that 87 foot sphere.


This exercise was nearly impenetrable to me at the time and I still struggle grasping it.


Want a little more fun?


The Space Shuttle orbits the earth at 25,000 feet per second. That is 8 times as fast as a bullet from a rifle. At that speed even something with the mass of a paint fleck leaves a significant impact on the shuttle (no resistance in space).


The speed of light is 40,000 times the speed of the orbiting space shuttle. Jesus that is fast. At that speed, our Sun’s light still takes 8 minutes to travel the 93 million miles to our beloved little orb.


In a Universe that has perhaps 100 Billion Galaxies and each Galaxy having perhaps 100 Billion stars each...makes the amount of stars border incomprehensibility.


The closest star to us, after our own sun, is 40 Trillion kms away. Which is to say if we could travel the speed of light (320,000 times faster than a speeding bullet), it would take us 4.3 years, give or take, to reach that lone closest of stars.


Just don’t run into anything of any mass at that speed or else “trip cancelled”!


Also worth noting is that is a long long way for E.T. to travel if he is fortuitously next door.


At that absurd speed it would take you 13,500,000,000 years to cross the known Universe. That is 160 million life times, traveling the speed of light. Inconceivable.


All of this got me wondering about the striking similarity between the infinitesimal nature of the particles within the atom scale and the equally dwarfing Universe scale.


Between the stars and the atom, there is really a lot of nothing...in absolutely everything.

As my good friend Sizzler says "it brings new meaning to making something out of nothing at all".


-Life is complicated and far from perfect but it is still great

1 comment:

  1. I guess the incomprehensible amount of space out there explains why most people feel they have a right to their own personal elbowroom. Great Job!!

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