The universe is supposed to be about 14 billion years old. There may be multiple universes. Human beings have been around for perhaps just 50,000 years. A human lifetime is about 80 years. There are perhaps 10^25 planets in the universe - a huge, huge number! There are perhaps 7 billion people on Earth today.
It is hard to get one's head around these numbers. On the one hand we seem insignificantly small and irrelevant. On the other hand it doesn't feel that way.
For a very long time I have been puzzled by scale. One the one hand the universe seems immensely vast. On the other hand at the atomic scale things are immensely small. We experience things at our scale.
What I wonder is this: does something link these two? Is the universe actually within us? Our brains cannot begin to comprehend, but our thinking about both the macro and micro scales has radically changed in 200 years.
In another 200 years people may look back at us in amazement.
One thing I am sure about is that in 100 years people will look back at us and think, "did they believe that?".
In the last century our ideas of the universe and of subatomic particles have changed enormously. I am sure they will change again in the next. Just think of the changes to our thinking as a result of quantum theory and Einstein.
Whatever I think is hardly likely to be correct, but I am often intrigued by scale. The visible universe is unbelievably huge with probably huge numbers of habitable planets. The subatomic world is incredible. Time is a puzzle. What if all these were linked and whole universes were inside each of us?
It is all a matter of scale. There is no reason whatsoever that universes have to be on the scale we know. Somehow I have the feeling that the macroscopic and microscopic worlds are somehow linked. One thing is certain: we know so little.
Everything remains a mystery.
Mudlarking is the term for looking for rubbish on the shores of the River Thames in London, UK. The earliest ever banana in London was found...
