It's called a metaphor. I suppose he could have said, "you might die accidentally hitting the wrong button on a hyperdimensional panfibrillator," but people don

It's called a metaphor. I suppose he could have said, "you might die accidentally hitting the wrong button on a hyperdimensional panfibrillator," but people don't generally talk like that, preferring more familiar and concrete imagery. Come to think of it, "1000 years" just means "really big number that's way longer than our current lifespan." When someone uses an exemplar to describe a class of things, you're supposed to imagine the other objects in that space.