The Cosmic Perspective: Journey To The Edge Of The Universe

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"Of all the sciences cultivated by mankind, Astronomy is acknowledged to be, and undoubtedly is, the most sublime, the most interesting, and the most useful. For, by knowledge derived from this science, not only the bulk of the Earth is discovered ...; but our very faculties are enlarged with the grandeur of the ideas it conveys, our minds exalted above [their] low contracted prejudices."

--James Ferguson, "Astronomy Explained Upon Sir Isaac Newtons Principles, And Made Easy To Those Who Have Not Studied Mathematics" (1757)

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The Cosmic Perspective

Long before anyone knew that the universe had a beginning, before we knew that the nearest large galaxy lies two and a half million light-years from Earth, before we knew how stars work or whether atoms exist, James Ferguson's enthusiastic introduction to his favorite science rang true. Yet his words, apart from their eighteenth-century flourish, could have been written yesterday.

But who gets to think that way? Who gets to celebrate this cosmic view of life? Not the migrant farmworker. Not the sweatshop worker. Certainly not the homeless person rummaging through the trash for food. You need the luxury of time not spent on mere survival. You need to live in a nation whose government values the search to understand humanity's place in the universe. You need a society in which intellectual pursuit can take you to the frontiers of discovery, and in which news of your discoveries can be routinely disseminated. By those measures, most citizens of industrialized nations do quite well.

Yet the cosmic view comes with a hidden cost. When I travel thousands of miles to spend a few moments in the fast-moving shadow of the Moon during a total solar eclipse, sometimes I lose sight of Earth.

When I pause and reflect on our expanding universe, with its galaxies hurtling away from one another, embedded within the ever-stretching, four-dimensional fabric of space and time, sometimes I forget that uncounted people walk this Earth without food or shelter, and that children are disproportionately represented among them.

When I pore over the data that establish the mysterious presence of dark matter and dark energy throughout the universe, sometimes I forget that every day—every twenty-four-hour rotation of Earth—people kill and get killed in the name of someone else's conception of God, and that some people who do not kill in the name of God kill in the name of their nation's needs or wants.

When I track the orbits of asteroids, comets, and planets, each one a pirouetting dancer in a cosmic ballet choreographed by the forces of gravity, sometimes I forget that too many people act in wanton disregard for the delicate interplay of Earth's atmosphere, oceans, and land, with consequences that our children and our childrens children will witness and pay for with their health and well-being.

And sometimes I forget that powerful people rarely do all they can to help those who cannot help themselves.

I occasionally forget those things because, however big the world is—in our hearts, our minds, and our outsize atlases—the universe is even bigger. A depressing thought to some, but a liberating thought to me.

Consider an adult who tends to the traumas of a child: a broken toy, a scraped knee, a schoolyard bully. Adults know that kids have no clue what constitutes a genuine problem, because inexperience greatly limits their childhood perspective.

As grown-ups, dare we admit to ourselves that we, too, have a collective immaturity of view? Dare we admit that our thoughts and behaviors spring from a belief that the world revolves around us? Apparently not. And the evidence abounds. Part the curtains of society's racial, ethnic, religious, national, and cultural conflicts, and you find the human ego turning the knobs and pulling the levers.

Now imagine a world in which everyone, but especially people with power and influence, holds an expanded view of our place in the cosmos. With that perspective, our problems would shrink—or never arise at all—and we could celebrate our earthly differences while shunning the behavior of our predecessors who slaughtered each other because of them.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/read/essays/nathist/cosmicperspective

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CREDITS
Editing: FFreeThinker
Images: NASA, ESA, Hubblecast, BBC
Music: Sigur Rós - "Hoppípolla"

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All clips/images used in this video are either copyright-free or covered under "fair use" for nonprofit educational purposes (Title 17 § 107 of the USC).
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[MrKyja72]

If I had a sturdy space ship that could travel even 1/4 or even 1/8 the speed of light and could comfortably provide for me, then it would be worth being able to live forever. Me and my ship in infinite exploration.

[Buccura]

Need more Morgan Freeman.

[mlinar10]

we are nothing but specks of dust dwelling on a dust speck

[xXDEICIDE216Xx]

@Buccura fuck yeah. Needs MOAR Morgan Freeman.

[hedgehoggy147]

We may not be significant, but at least we live in the second largest galaxy in out cluster.

On the other hand we're actually set for a collision course with the largest, but nobody needs to think about that.

[wargamion]

The universe is a massive place, so massive, beautiful, yet at the same time makes me think how little, and insignificant we are in comparison to the whole universe, but at the same time how we must work towards exploring the universe.

[tossitupman]

Loved watching this, the mere thoughts of how big space is, simply overloads one's mind when thought upon too long.

[tossitupman]

@watchWorld100

you're a few thousands years too young to claim anything is false. WE all are. People read a few science books or skimmed a few scriptures and suddenly "know" something.

The video itself basically says, we still know sh** about the grand scheme of the universe. Ignorance shades on both end of the spectrum..

[tossitupman]

@Akira625

Perhaps we give too much credit to primitive logic.

[kevo8t6]

amazing

[Akira625]

@ZanyJIntPictures You give far too much credit to an Earth-bound deity devised by primitives.

[watchWorld100]

@ZanyJIntPictures fuck you and your religion delusion!!! What i am seeing is God himself. the universe is God and it is never created by a mythical figure like jesus, krishna, horus, allah, and other bullshit ideas!