How big can you think?

A harder question to think about than it seems at first.

Our planet is so big compared to a single person, yet you can see the curve of the earth gieven enough clear horizon, so i have no trouble imagining that tinyest curve as a tiny slice of a big pie of the earth.

Now given that i can imagine my self as a tiny speck on the surface of this ball, im familier with distance and units of mesurement and i can understand that i cant see more than a few miles and that the moon, being 30 times smaller than the earth is still pretty big, the curve visable from the surface increased significantly over that of earths.

The moon at a distance that would take a jet two weeks to get there, at the same speed it flys on earth, ive been abroad and i understand thats like traveling from the UK to Australia 16 times.

Now this is where the scale starts to slip away from my minds eye. The sun is 400 times the size of the moon, at 400 times the distance, with the moon/earth ratio of 30 times, this makes the surface of the sun (if one were able to stand on it), appear to have a almost undetectable visable curvature.

Considering just how fast light travels when we talk about earthy distances, it still takes this same super fast light some 8 minutes to get to us once its emited from the sun, at the jet plane speed thats nearly 3 years travel time (3500 years at walking speed).

The size of the solar system is approx 30 times further out than we are to the Sun, using pluto as the furthest planet. So from the Sun, at jet plane speed to pluto, it would take 90 years to reach it and light from the sun would take 3 hours to get there.

Our solar system is just one tiny light in a massive galaxy of relitivly tiny lights, yet HUGE distances from each other.

Breaking the numbers down like that helps me to comprehend sizes of just about the erath and distance to the sun, my thoughts slow down when i try to think any bigger while keeping the relative size of my body in mind.

My question is this; Just how big can you think before the sheer scale limits your imagination?

reply to post by Biigs




This Big!

reply to post by Biigs

How big? 930 Yottameters
Try this for the greatest visualisation I've seen of scale. Drag the slider at the bottom to get smaller, drag to the right to get bigger. Hope you enjoy.
The Scale of the Universe

reply to post by Biigs


No problem here, just don't use anything so slow as a jet.
My problem is that I have not found a useful navigation device.
Say a sort of cosmic tomtom.
If you bring me that, we will build a suitable ship.
I already have tested the drive, it's OK.

I dont know I can imagine Earth pretty darn small. If Earth is the size of a grain of sand in our Ocean, compared to our own Galaxy. that would make it small, but that is really nothing in scale. I can Imagine earth the size of well just about nothing really, just a speck, in the vast Universe of something.

reply to post by LightSpeedDriver


That my ATS dwelling freind is absolutly amazing!! VERY nice!

It doesnt help me actually try to visualise the scale any better than i can now, but still a fasinating and stunning visual scale, perhaps after a bit more of play with it i can expand my minds ability to encompass our solar system and not just earth to sun scales

reply to post by Biigs


For Me, I can think of the observable universe...and beyond. And I can think in terms of subquantum scales, too.

[shrug] I have tested as "genius" in spatial perception. Maybe that explains My ability...

reply to post by Biigs

I like it when the scientists aren't all hell bent on world genetic domination modification and produce stuff like this. I like it simple and visual.

"If you can't explain it to a barmaid, it's probably not very good physics."
Ernest Rutherford

I am that barmaid/man.

Well i can think about the size of the universe, how far we can see in terms of light that has reached us, and light that still hasnt and in fact, will neve reach us in time before we dont exist anymore.

Just as easy as i can go the other way and think about scales so small that I can imagine moving inbetween atoms.

However i find that im substituting science fact with pure imagination, and not like how i would think about somthing i can touch feel and manipulate. Lets say like how i would imagine building a lego model of somthing, i can see the pieces i would use and think about how and what parts would need to be fitted, but this is because i have examined them with my hands.

At what piont does somthing you know and can relate to in reality, change to pure imagination?

I used the plane speed as a unit because its somthing i can directly relate to, unlike the speed of light which is pretty much unobservable in comparason but nesessery to talk about.

reply to post by Biigs

Well, like the plane analogy, I guess this is why they invented the speed of light theory due to the distances involved. Sure it's a ridiculous speed, which, even if humanly possible, surely sounds painful. Well, to most anyway.

ETA If it takes John 300,000,000 years to get to the pub traveling at light speed, how many pints does John get to drink before being called by the missus? Not many I reckon...