My kids asked me to dust off this youtube clip (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfs1t-2rrOM) this morning and I realized that it had been a while since I'd seen it too.

Considering the perspective that it offers regarding our relative place in the universe, I thought it might make for an interesting topic in Kavar's.

Enjoy.

How could you be so cruel as to expose children to the Total Perspective Vortex?!

:xp:

In all seriousness, that is very humbling. But humility is something we should, I think, value more in this day and age.

No, this doesn't really make me feel any less smaller.

The reason? I'm the only one of those that is smart enough to be able to know that I am in fact smaller.

Nice video Achilles. :)

Maybe you'd also enjoy witnessing infinity (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATWrMlIKRBk&mode=related&search=) -- a linked video from yours.

Bonus:
Fibonacci sequences and you (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RE2Lu65XxTU&mode=related&search=)

Maybe you'd also enjoy witnessing infinity (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATWrMlIKRBk&mode=related&search=) -- a linked video from yours. I feel like narcotics should be involved.

Bonus:
Fibonacci sequences and you (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RE2Lu65XxTU&mode=related&search=) I feel the need to go watch the movie Pi. :)

I feel the need to go watch the movie Pi. :)
Is it like my book, Joy of Pi (http://www.joyofpi.com/)?)

"A paranoid mathematician searches for a key number that will unlock the universal patterns found in nature."

http://imdb.com/title/tt0138704/)

Your kind of movie, teekay :xp:

P.S. Yes, I own it.

Irrational numbers are humbling. :)

My kids asked me to dust off this youtube clip (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfs1t-2rrOM) this morning and I realized that it had been a while since I'd seen it too.

Considering the perspective that it offers regarding our relative place in the universe, I thought it might make for an interesting topic in Kavar's.

Enjoy.

Knowing that yourself is small, thats one thing. Being humbled, thats another. It is unfortunate that most things on the list are unlikely to be populated by sentients, plus bigger does not equal to better.

Its liike, the old GIGANTIC xbox does not perform better than a 360.

But it is quite a viedo, but would be better with some sound.

How could you be so cruel as to expose children to the Total Perspective Vortex?!

Nah, it's not the Total Perspective Vortex, it doesn't even touch on the scale of solar systems, galaxies, and universes. I mean, laying all those things out in scale is REALLY cool and all, but if you spread them out over their distances, the sheer size of space is what's amazing.

In any case, I agree with PW that it needs some sound, but it otherwise cool.

"Do you have any idea what it's like to be a manically depressed robot?"

EDIT: AH! Here is it, now this is a Total Perspective Vortex.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGxRWCmwSDE)

Wow, I couldnt believe how big the VV Cephei was!

Nice music in that Web Rider. Quite a trip, 10 billion light-years.

Here's another from a different perspective -- one from the Hubble Space Telescope.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcBV-cXVWFw&mode=related&search=)

Ha! I have that one in my favorites too (another one that the kids love to watch).

EDIT: This pic (http://www.news.wisc.edu/newsphotos/images/Milky_Way_galaxy_sun05.jpg) is something else that I like to dust off from time to time. In order to get a hint of the magnitude, you have to look at the enlarged view.

All I can think to write is “Size does not matter.”

Nice video.

I think it's safe to say that mimartin wins the Zaphod Beeblebrox Award :)