[b]Neil deGrasse Tyson from Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
An artist coworker of mine once asked whether alien life forms from Europa would be called Europeans. The absence of any other plausible answer forced me to say yes.[/b]
Let’s hope that never becomes a problem.
What we do know, and what we can assert without further hesitation, is that the universe had a beginning. The universe continues to evolve. And yes, every one of our body’s atoms is traceable to the big bang and to the thermonuclear furnaces within high-mass stars that exploded more than five billion years ago. We are stardust brought to life, then empowered by the universe to figure itself out—and we have only just begun.
Not that we ever really had a choice of course.
Whatever that means.
Earth’s Moon is about 1/400th the diameter of the Sun, but it is also 1/400th as far from us, making the Sun and the Moon the same size on the sky—a coincidence not shared by any other planet–moon combination in the solar system, allowing for uniquely photogenic total solar eclipses.
Let’s thank the Lord for that.
The power and beauty of physical laws is that they apply everywhere, whether or not you choose to believe in them.
How about our brains then? And that part we call “mind”.
Time to get cosmic. There are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on any beach, more stars than seconds have passed since Earth formed, more stars than words and sounds ever uttered by all the humans who ever lived.
Right, like someone actually counted them.
But what if the universe was always there, in a state or condition we have yet to identify—a multiverse, for instance, that continually births universes? Or what if the universe just popped into existence from nothing? Or what if everything we know and love were just a computer simulation rendered for entertainment by a super intelligent alien species? These philosophically fun ideas usually satisfy nobody. Nonetheless, they remind us that ignorance is the natural state of mind for a research scientist. People who believe they are ignorant of nothing have neither looked for, nor stumbled upon, the boundary between what is known and unknown in the universe.
For some philosophically fun, for others philosophically disturbing.