Explaining the Universe and You

Now I stumbled across this book recently (and it's the 4th book I attempt to read within a decade for reasons explained later on) and it gives me rashes and mindspins, laughter and marvels - anything but tears, which is what I conceive a good book to be.

It's Bill Bryson - A Short History Of Nearly Everything, written in 2002/3.

I only share two passages with you (as I'm only at a fifth of it's entire volume) and encourage you to read it, if you have ever wondered what things are about (in science classes) and never found anyone explaining it to you in a way comprehensible. I also encourage you to read it, if you're suicidal, depressed or suffering from any other condition that makes you not appreciating life in general, or your life in special.

I will have more to say on the subject and reckon it's the stuff, wonderful discussions, debates and evenings of a wondrous outlook on existence are woven from.

Enjoy:

Written by: Bill Bryson, A Short History Of Nearly Everything

Introduction

Welcome. And congratulations. I am delighted that you could make it. Getting here wasn't easy, I know. In fact, I suspect it was a little tougher than you realize.
To begin with, for you to be here now trillions of drifting atoms had somehow to assemble in an intricate and curiously obliging manner to create you. It's an arrangement so specialized and particular that it has never been tried before and will only exist this once. For the next many years (we hope) these tiny particles will uncomplainingly engage in all the billions of deft, co-operative efforts necessary to keep you intact and let you experience the supremely agreeable but generally under appreciated state known as existence.
Why atoms take this trouble is a bit of a puzzle. Being you is not a gratifying experience at the atomic level. For all their devoted attention, your atoms don't care about you - indeed, don't even know that you are there. They don't even know that they are there. They are mindless particles after all, and not even themselves alive. (It's a slightly arresting notion that if you were to pick yourself apart with tweezers, one atom at a time, you would produce a mound of fine atomic dust, none of which had ever been alive but all of which had once been you.) Yet somehow for the period of your existence they will answer to a single rigid impulse: to keep you you.

Now he goes on and gives the valued reader a brief overview about the size and dimension of the Universe and how science evolved, explaining and understanding the Universe in itself. The book has it lengthy moments, where he displays the struggle of scientists and their (sometimes rigid) personalities. But all in all he's able to give examples that make (me) understand scales and proportions.

example:

Written by: Bill Bryson, A Short History Of Nearly Everything

Welcome To The Solar System

Our solar system might be the liveliest thing for trillions of miles, but all the visible stuff in it - the Sun, the planets and their moons, the billion or so tumbling rocks of the asteroid belt, the comets and other miscellaneous drifting detritus - fills less than a trillionth of the available space. You also quickly realize that none of the maps you have ever seen of the solar system was drawn remotely to scale. (...)
Such are the distances, in fact, that it isn't possible, in any practical terms, to draw the solar system to scale. Even if you added lots of fold out pages to your textbooks or used a really long sheet of poster paper, you wouldn't come close. (...)
Even if you shrank down everything so that Jupiter was as small as the full stop at the end of this sentence, and Pluto was no bigger than a molecule, Pluto would still be over 10 metres away. (...)
Now , the other thing you will notice as we speed past Pluto is that we are speeding past Pluto. If you check your intinerary, you will see that this is a trip to the edge of our solar system, and I'm afraid we're not there yet. (...)
We won't get to the solar system's edge until we have passed through the Oort cloud, a vast celestial realm of drifting comets, and we won't reach the Oort cloud for another - I'm so sorry about this - ten thousand years. Far from marking the outer edge of the solar system, as those schoolroom maps so cavalierly imply, Pluto is barely one-fifty-thousandth of the way.

This stuff being perfect for a cozy star gazing night, to sweetly get whispered into a desired girls ear (while all we (boys) want is to get into their pants) - unfortunately my memory is by far too weak to remember all this stuff exactly and it's not very romantic to just hand her the book instead. But (to me) it opens up a deeper understanding into the mysteries of existence, reconfirms a lot of stuff I believe to have figured out by myself (or vaguely remembering from back then in school) and explains why I saw what I saw back then when using illicit substances to expand and alter my consciousness:

Written by: BB's SHONE

The Mighty Atom

At sea level, at a temperature of 0 degree Celsius, one cubic centimetre of air (that is, a space about the size of a sugar cube) will contain billion billion molecules. And they are in every single cubic centimetre you see around you. Think how many cubic centimetres there are in the world outside your window - how many sugar cubes it would take to fill that view. Then think how many it would take take to build a Universe. Atoms, in short, are very abundant.

In his book, Bill Bryson swiftly tackles the most fundamental scientific theories, from the Big Bang to the Relativity Theory to the evolution of man, he gives background information about the lives and personalities of scientists and explains scientific processes in a humorous, modestly easy-to-understand way.

Now there is something that repelled me from picking up the book, after having read its introduction: First I would never again be able to claim that I have gained these insights from within myself - pondering upon the Universe and it's structure whilst rudimentary scribbling a disfigured butterfly on a napkin for example. Second I would be absorbing blasphemous texts, for which I would have gotten burned just a few centuries ago, along with the author (what an honor) and third for not really knowing where to go after I have absorbed and maybe even understood the content of this book.

Now why is this a topic of "Social Discussion" you may ask? Well I gain a firm belief that, by understanding the Universe and it's laws, we (or better speaking "I") may gain (a better) understanding of mankind and myself.

As a matter of fact I believe that: "as in the smallest, in the greatest scale - as below, so beyond" = as equations always are reversible, it has to apply the other way round too.

Humans, after all, are like planets and some are like stars (= Suns) out there. Some even are "standard candles", by which we can measure the size (and vastness) of consciousness. Whilst most of us may never become stars (or even more), we can become planets and by that harbor life (which stars unfortunately cannot). Some of us remain moons and create currents (without which life would not get stirred up), become comets that fall from the skies and transport vital elements to distant planets or (fatally) eradicate entire species - making room for other steps of evolution (both meta- and physically). Until we surpassed our prime, have our atoms transformed (a billion of which once have been Shakespeare, Gengis Khan and (honorably) Buddha, traveled through space and time for times immemorial) and (maybe or not) re-in-carnate...

Will the understanding of the size, dimension and laws of the Universe help us to understand and grasp the value of (our very own) existence? An existence that is not coined by conditionings of "good and evil", "peace and war", "acceptance and rejection", etc. but one that overcomes all these dualities in definition and leads to a wholesome, content life?

Is our life and existence governed by chance or justice? (Which is the title of another small booklet about "the golden rule")

Thanks for having read (a part of this) rather looooong, but hopefully mildly entertaining post and thanks for attempting to share your thoughts. Certainly thanks to Bill Bryson and the copyright owners of the book, who hopefully don't sue me for reproducing parts of it here...

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