"Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend those things which 'are' there."
- Dr. Richard Feynman
The world in which we live is vast, incredibly huge and dense with information of innumerable kinds. No matter which way one's gaze turns, there is an overwhelming amount of depth to discover. For example, one could spend countless hours studying the movement of glaciers, the habits of different ant colonies, or the composition of a particular patch of earth (perhaps with respect to fungi, or to minerals, or to foliage) and yet, never scratch the surface.
With such a breadth of knowledge, what is an individual to do? It seems impossible to master one subject in a lifetime, let alone to attain an understanding of all related mechanisms in nature. But, the individual is not alone. As of 2016 the estimated world population stands at 7.4 billion people. Many know this number, but perhaps do not realize its full implication. Not, to say, that there are no connotations associated with the number, but more that we do not fully understand the magnitude. A billion is a thousand million, 1 x 10^9, a one with nine trailing zeroes, all of these give definition to the word but not an implicit understanding.
Our minds have a hard time with numbers like "a billion" because we see things in proportion to our own lives. We can intuitively grasp tens, hundreds, thousands and even tens of thousands because it's likely we've seen groupings of objects reach those numbers, and thus have some reference. But past a point, our mind switches to "lots" and "more than lots". We can impress that a number is large by alluding to grains of sand on a beach, stars in the sky, or people on earth, but the intuitive understanding is mostly gone, replaced by a comparison of one large amount to another.
Yet, the impact of our population is easily seen, as our species has gained and cataloged incredible amounts of information, built generation upon generation, so that the contribution of an individual might be small but the sum giant. A great example of this lies in the field of atomic physics. Through the imagination of Neils Bohr, Einstein, Rutherford, Heisenberg and many others, an understanding of some of the mechanisms of the atomic particles came to light. Now, less than a hundred years from their great contributions, we can harvest the fission of heavy nuclei for energy.
Indeed, in the atomic field also lies another example of the indescribable enormity of our universe, as we now have an idea that material is composed of atoms. As an example, a single milliliter (a cubic centimeter) of water at standard temperature and pressure contains roughly 6.68 x 10^22 atoms of hydrogen. That's more than the entire human population of earth multiplied by itself. That is to say, if we had an entire population of earth for every human currently in existence, we would still number less than the atoms of hydrogen in a milliliter of water. Incredible.
Of course, the vastness of our cosmos also expresses itself in the variety of life, the massive expanse of our galaxy and the shear number of estimated galaxies. All of this is to call attention to the depth that surrounds us. What to make of it is left to the reader, whom assuredly has mused on similar tangents.
Intuition or the "feel" of a number is a crazy thing. You raise a good point that there is a limited range of magnitudes we can associate with our actual experience, and that the rest of our conception comes from relating to those experiences. What an interesting duality that things on both the astronomic scale and the atomic scale are beyond our experience. We are both very small, and very large.
ReplyDeleteReally enjoyed this post. There is great beauty in the complexity of things that actually reside in the world and we don't have to create others just to appreciate beauty. But then with that astronomical magnitude of diversity one can feel lost with one's place amongst the many. But I hope the answer lies not only in recognition of group solidarity. It is encouraging though. Maybe one can set out approaching the goal of endless knowledge, that one will never reach, not disheartened by the futility but for love of it. When this person reaches their final milestone, they can take heart in the fact that those exact experiences are unique to them solely because of the infinite amount of varying experiences that were possible. Even before setting out to master a subject, one can also be reassured that they will never master it, never getting bored. There's no end to the path and they can explore to their heart's content. In this sense not only is the immense diversity daunting but also reassuring. And while it is reassuring due to the teamwork one can have with your other 7.3999 billion comrades but also from the uniqueness and endless depth of your experience.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful take! The idea that a person can devote themselves fully to a subject as a life goal and find contentment there is admirable and worthy, and indeed seen in the history of many of our great contributors.
DeleteAdditionally, by no means is the cognition of an individual as a cog in the human system meant to be the only solace one can gain from our world. In fact, I would argue that there are endless perspectives that can be reached, each just as valid as the next.
This concept is definitely mind blowing. I feel that, as is the case with most people that grow older and time is going by faster and faster, viewing our own trajectories can raise some scary feelings since our futures are uncertain! Senior year is teaching me many lessons!
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