The Impossible Scale

One concept that I think nobody, not even myself, fully understands is the scale of the Universe. In all honesty, I'm not sure it's possible to truly grasp such a scale; however, the purpose of this post will be to try to open your eyes to the incredible size of the world in which we live. One of the best representations of this scale that I've ever seen was posted on February 8th by Dr. Siana. Through a fairly simple flash program you can actually cycle through vast sizes and learn of different things which measure in at that size. (That was a little bit confusing, but I think I got the message across.)

The scale that we're adjusted to is fitted to sizes which we can directly relate to. Sizes which we deal with on a daily basis, focused on our minuscule range of the extreme size of the universe. A spoonful, a few feet, a mile, a meter. All of these units of measure are incredibly close to the our own size in the universe. I feel that this video gives a great tour through the universe:

As you can see, the Earth is insignificant in our universe. In our solar system, perhaps, but definitely not in the overall universe. What happens to the Earth has such a small effect on everything beyond the solar system that it is completely negligible. Its unfathomable how large the universe is and how many individual particles are actually within it. All of the distance you travel throughout your lifetime added up together will still be negligible compared to the size of the universe.

Give that a thought...