4 ms·
It’s even more “massive” down below. There are only 27 orders of magnitude between human size and the size of the observable universe, but 35 orders of magnitud
by layer8 2y ago
It’s even more “massive” down below. There are only 27 orders of magnitude between human size and the size of the observable universe, but 35 orders of magnitude between human size and the Planck length. ;)
- ThomasBHickey 2y ago'Fundamentals' by Frank Wilczek explores this: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/554034/fundamentals-by-frank-wilczek/ https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/554034/fundamentals...
- worldsayshi 2y agoIt could really be much larger beyond the observable horizon though? But I guess we will never know.
- seanw444 2y agoUnless faster-than-light travel becomes possible.
- layer8 2y agoIt might, and that’s part of the reason why I put a smiley. On the other hand, the larger you go, the less relevant it becomes, because if the light cones don’t touch then it might just as well be a separate universe.
- tsimionescu 2y agoIt could also be much smaller below the planck scale, but not causally connected to our level. That is, nothing in known physics prevents their being entire universes of particles that are so small that it is impossible to ever detect them with any of the Standard Model particles.
- worldsayshi 2y agoRight, can we reasonably rule out that such interactions don't happen in special circumstances that are hard for us to measure? Like in stars or black holes? (Or randomly and very seldom but often enough in vast interstellar space to give rise to dark matter like phenomenon?)
- tsimionescu 2y agoWe can't rule out the existence of something like this, so of course we can't rule out interactions with something we don't even know exists. But there's an infinity of things we can't rule out, but for which we don't have any reason to believe might exist, so it's not very interesting to speculate about them.
- aoeusnth1 2y agoAnd a currently unknown number of OOMs (possibly infinite) beyond the observable horizon.
- lynguist 2y agoSo we are rather “large” beings and not small ones. Are these orders of magnitude scaled by 10 to go from one to the next?
- 0x5345414e 2y agoYes
- malodyets 2y agoPowers of 10 is the classic presentation: https://youtu.be/0fKBhvDjuy0 https://youtu.be/0fKBhvDjuy0
- statnamara 2y agoI haven't seen this in many years, it really is a spectacular way of making you feel the vastness of the universe and the difference in scales.
- veunes 2y agoMind-blowing, right? It's wild to think we’re just floating in the middle of all that