Post AodN1t9ZFAYOdkGeae by yonder@spacey.space
(DIR) More posts by yonder@spacey.space
(DIR) Post #AodHqu8OkvnCj7fDJg by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-12-02T10:41:32Z
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Is "human scale" closer to the very small than the very large? I think it is.OR is that just a function of the limits on perception and measurement placed on us by our scale?
(DIR) Post #AodI2CrHTtcdz22wSW by nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social
2024-12-02T10:43:24Z
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@futurebird We (very approximately) know the limits of the very large, but we're still struggling even to find the limits of the very small. Even just looking at atoms alone (much less subatomic particles and perhaps beyond like strings) starts producing insane numbers.So I'm going to say we're closer to the large than the small.
(DIR) Post #AodI4rCuR6MvhbQWwK by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-12-02T10:44:04Z
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@nazokiyoubinbou But there isn't an upper limit on large. With small you hit the plank and can't do much else.
(DIR) Post #AodID84TcVRIK0QXWC by nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social
2024-12-02T10:45:33Z
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@futurebird I think there actually are two upper limits. First there's the obvious: what actually physically exists. (Eg all the mass out there in stars, planets, rocks, etc etc.)The other is the less obvious: it's unlikely things as we know them can exist outside the fabric of spacetime. (As for if anything can exist beyond that, that can't be answered, but if the answer was yes, it wouldn't be part of our universe.)
(DIR) Post #AodJ5pPIiLyAMZFYGW by malte@radikal.social
2024-12-02T10:55:23Z
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@futurebird I will go with the risky answer (risking being boring) and say the human scale is right in the middle. I guess that's your second option. In the middle meaning: Between what is very small for humans and what is very large for humans. Human scale for me means the scale (and the measurement of those proportions) are human too and is based on human perception.
(DIR) Post #AodKGylQMlHeWRTkrg by mansr@society.oftrolls.com
2024-12-02T11:08:38Z
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@futurebird The Planck length is 1.6e-35 m, and the diameter of the observable universe is 8.8e26 m. The human scale (around 1 m) is thus, in one sense at least, closer to the large than to the small.
(DIR) Post #AodKLNKwwjJntOBy08 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-12-02T11:09:27Z
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@mansr Great now I'm upset about things being too small AND too large. Thanks a lot man.
(DIR) Post #AodKiOTSsr1o529PtI by StephanMatthiesen@troet.cafe
2024-12-02T11:13:35Z
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@futurebird @mansr Just to mess things up more, we don't know how large the unobservable universe is, and on the other hand, the smalles actual objects are much larger than the Planck scale. So we can have a long and heated argument about "very small" and "very large" and where we fit in :mastojoy:
(DIR) Post #AodKqqBrigImMBwlCy by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-12-02T11:15:07Z
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@StephanMatthiesen @mansr "So we can have a long and heated argument about "very small" and "very large" and where we fit in"Just the pot I woke and and decided to stir!
(DIR) Post #AodL5V4sUxpBDkfW1A by mansr@society.oftrolls.com
2024-12-02T11:17:46Z
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@futurebird We could also look at time. At one extreme, we have the Planck time of 1e-43 s, and at the other the age of the universe, currently estimated at 4.3e17 s (13.7 billion years). A human lifetime (~100 years) is 3.2e9 s, again placing us closer to the long than the short.
(DIR) Post #AodLy7T3yt4XvI1doG by koantig@mamot.fr
2024-12-02T11:27:37Z
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@futurebird That reminds me of this representation of human experience:https://tiny.tilde.website/@astrid/111781106663316799I tried to reproduce it but ended up with something slightly different:https://mamot.fr/@koantig/111793813578872231
(DIR) Post #AodMCuFHQJudG5d58a by louisffourie@c.im
2024-12-02T11:30:18Z
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@futurebird @mansr For me, it has the opposite effect. Contemplating it brings peace and release.
(DIR) Post #AodN1t9ZFAYOdkGeae by yonder@spacey.space
2024-12-02T11:39:31Z
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@futurebird Ages ago I read a popular science book that brought up the concept of 'information space' in relation to physical space.So, as planet Earth has a biosphere and the biosphere genes + life processes constitute a huge amount of information, it argued that by this, Earth's scale in this sense dwarfed that of the rest of the universe altogether. (Assuming no other life out there).I don't know if that's really true, but the concept definitely stuck with me. Not the book's name though
(DIR) Post #AodNJvjMOrTrqVc1b6 by golgaloth@writing.exchange
2024-12-02T11:42:45Z
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@futurebirdThe limits of human perception do not define the limits of the universe. Universal scales quickly make human scales seem irrelevant.Humans have massive trouble processing universal scale. There are more atoms in a grain of sand than there are grains of sand on every beach in the world. The brain cannot process this.One Astronomical Unit is 150,000,000km. Humans don't really understand how far that is. Uranus is 20AU from the sun. Voyager1 is eight times farther.
(DIR) Post #AodOtsGcr1xxU1sKS8 by australopithecus@mastodon.social
2024-12-02T12:00:28Z
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@futurebird Superclusters are about 10^23 m across, whereas an electron is no larger than 10^-22.So we're pretty close to the middle, but maybe slightly closer to small.
(DIR) Post #AodPNvGiG9zvTnFCjo by david_chisnall@infosec.exchange
2024-12-02T12:05:54Z
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@futurebird I think of 'human scale' as the range where you can pretend Newton's model of the universe is vaguely correct. No relativity (big things) and no quantum effects (small things). I think humans are slightly closer to the small side of that range than the large side.
(DIR) Post #AodRTnop4Rdk1J88no by mattmcirvin@mathstodon.xyz
2024-12-02T12:29:20Z
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@futurebird The LHC can probe physics on scales down to about 10^-20 meters (I think). But the Planck length, the smallest scale theoretical physicists consider having any real meaning, is about 10^-35 meters. There's this gigantic gulf on the small side that really can't be experimentally explored.The furthest astronomers can see back is to the beginning of the universe, and that light traveled about 10^26 meters. But of course we can theorize about the universe being far bigger than that.So it's harder to see way down than way up, by several orders of magnitude.
(DIR) Post #AodS6Fl1dx8Lftglrk by mattmcirvin@mathstodon.xyz
2024-12-02T12:35:50Z
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@futurebird The thing that freaks me out a little is how much *less* dwarfed we are by time than by space. As gigantic as deep time is, the Earth is a microscopic speck lost in the spatial universe, but it's existed for about a third of the total lifetime of the universe. And for most of that time, there was life on it, though it was very simple.
(DIR) Post #Aodaup71GimzRDbKLI by WAHa_06x36@mastodon.social
2024-12-02T14:15:02Z
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@futurebird @nazokiyoubinbou There is the observable universe, which is a pretty reasonable upper limit, especially since the *reachable* universe is smaller than this.
(DIR) Post #AodeOrfAeIaTtoaj7w by mattmcirvin@mathstodon.xyz
2024-12-02T14:54:08Z
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@futurebird @nazokiyoubinbou it's not even clear that the Planck length is a hard limit to smallness, just that there's somewhat speculative theoretical reason to believe that space doesn't work in a way we're accustomed to on any scale smaller than that.
(DIR) Post #AodpZKbkzCtU3uBits by IngaLovinde@embracing.space
2024-12-02T16:59:15Z
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@futurebird @StephanMatthiesen @mansr now ask whether π is closer to very small positive numbers or very large
(DIR) Post #Aoe1z2Vm5dgauqPn3A by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-12-02T19:18:26Z
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@lumecolca @IngaLovinde @StephanMatthiesen @mansr now hold on just a minute!
(DIR) Post #AofS1hk8YRW9L51Ylk by freemancrouch@mastodon.social
2024-12-02T14:52:48Z
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@mattmcirvin @futurebird Yeah. The universe being so "young" relative to how long it took to evolve us is super weird to me. Also seems like a reason for the Fermi paradox. The universe simply isn't old enough to have evolved very many spacefaring species.
(DIR) Post #AofS1j8dMqhtfLUdai by mattmcirvin@mathstodon.xyz
2024-12-03T11:43:47Z
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@freemancrouch @futurebird We're also in the process of learning that while exoplanets are quite common, solar systems even vaguely resembling ours are pretty rare. At first that could have been selection bias caused by hot Jupiters being the easiest to detect, but the search is at the point now where it can be said that it's more than that.