How big is the Universe?

How Big Is The Universe? from Beakus on Vimeo.

(via IO9.com)

The Universe in a Glass of Wine

Search Escalates for Key to Why Matter Exists

I like the idea that while I am trying to figure out what to eat for breakfast others are asking the bigger questions, like...  'why is there something rather than nothing in the universe?'.  Actually, I sometimes do ask myself that while eating my cereal and trying to figure out why I do what I do.   Some light reading from Quanta magazine.

"According to the Standard Model of particle physics, the universe should be empty. Matter and antimatter, which are identical except for their opposite electric charges, seem to be produced in equal parts during particle interactions and decays. However, matter and antimatter instantly annihilate each other upon contact, and so equal amounts of each would have meant a wholesale annihilation of both shortly after the Big Bang. The existence of galaxies, planets and people illustrates that somehow, a small surplus of matter survived this canceling process. If that hadn’t happened, “the universe would be void,” Schönert said. “It would be very, very boring for us, who would not exist.”"

Read the rest of the article here: Search escalates for Key to Why Matter Exists.  
(via grahamhancock.com)  

Sound Observation from a Sci-Fi Genius

‘A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve an equation, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.’~ Robert A. Heinlein

You might know Heinlein from such works as:

"Stranger in a Strange Land"
"Starship Troopers"
"The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"

Can't Get Enough Ed Abbey

Ed Abbey is rapidly becoming my favorite philosopher.  These two clips are taken from Jack Loeffler's interview of Abbey in 1983, when he had become the old man, to which he refers in the first clip.  One would think that having dabbled in Environmental Studies at UVM, I would have been able to recite Abbey chapter and verse, but the truth is I am just now coming to him in my sedate middle age, so that perhaps when I'm in the final stages I'll have something to teach (ed. watch the video...he's rambling again).

Some of my favorite spots when he theorizes that no one is worthy of eternal life and that the desire for immortality comes from having lived a lifeless life.  I also like that he likes the world just as it is, that it is just a roiling human comedy full of strife and conflict, but that is what makes it so great...and when you're gone you're gone and that there's no use getting all sentimental about it.  Finally, I like that he says that we as humans have as much of a right to life as any other life, but that we don't have the right to exploit that right, and that we should have reverence for life in all of its forms.

Annotations:

1. Shakespeare's "The Seven Ages of Man" the famous poem that begins with "All the world's a stage..."
2. A somnambulist's favorite, Joyce's "Ulysses" "History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake"

What is the Universe?

A Universe Not Made for Us