Video

about 4:00 minutes

Brilliant.

Amazing stuff

I’m guessing there’s a lot of depth compression in the animation.

http://www.richarddawkins.net/news_articles/2014/1/3/the-incredibly-huge-size-of-andromeda-next-to-the-moon#

By coincidence, ^this article got me thinking, and I only really realised today how dark the universe actually is. If you took away all of the Milky Way and its satellites, including our own solar system, and were left here floating in a spacesuit, you’d see only two faint lights in the entire sky, being the central cores of the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies. Probably photos and animations such as those in the OP have created a false impression, in reality moving through space at these scales you’d see nothing much happening.

MInd you, I hate it when they say “your mind cannot grasp numbers like a billion”

Course it fucken can

dv said:

MInd you, I hate it when they say “your mind cannot grasp numbers like a billion”

Course it fucken can

Some people have minds that can’t: they’re known as ‘creationists’.

dv said:

MInd you, I hate it when they say “your mind cannot grasp numbers like a billion”

Course it fucken can

Not really..

in terms of picturing a billion individual things and not just a great mass of stuff

Dropbear said:

dv said:

MInd you, I hate it when they say “your mind cannot grasp numbers like a billion”

Course it fucken can

Not really..

in terms of picturing a billion individual things and not just a great mass of stuff

But in that sense our grasp on numbers starts slipping after five. But who says “England made 155 runs, a number too vast for the human mind to grasp”?

Soso said:

Dropbear said:

dv said:

MInd you, I hate it when they say “your mind cannot grasp numbers like a billion”

Course it fucken can

Not really..

in terms of picturing a billion individual things and not just a great mass of stuff

But in that sense our grasp on numbers starts slipping after five. But who says “England made 155 runs, a number too vast for the human mind to grasp”?

I can visualise 20 things. I can’t visualise a million.

Dropbear said:

Soso said:

Dropbear said:

Not really..

in terms of picturing a billion individual things and not just a great mass of stuff

But in that sense our grasp on numbers starts slipping after five. But who says “England made 155 runs, a number too vast for the human mind to grasp”?

I can visualise 20 things. I can’t visualise a million.

But you can visualise the concept of a million.

Dropbear said:

I can visualise 20 things. I can’t visualise a million.

For a visualisation of a million, i just picture a general assembly at the old high school.

Then, imagine 1,000 of those spread out over a vast field.

captain_spalding said:

Dropbear said:

I can visualise 20 things. I can’t visualise a million.

For a visualisation of a million, i just picture a general assembly at the old high school.

Then, imagine 1,000 of those spread out over a vast field.

Imagine 1000 one bar radiators. That’s a million watts.

Tamb said:

Dropbear said:

Soso said:

But in that sense our grasp on numbers starts slipping after five. But who says “England made 155 runs, a number too vast for the human mind to grasp”?

I can visualise 20 things. I can’t visualise a million.

But you can visualise the concept of a million.

I don’t know what visualising a concept of a million means

captain_spalding said:

Dropbear said:

I can visualise 20 things. I can’t visualise a million.

For a visualisation of a million, i just picture a general assembly at the old high school.

Then, imagine 1,000 of those spread out over a vast field.

That’s just picturing a thousand “things” :)

Dropbear said:

captain_spalding said:

Dropbear said:

I can visualise 20 things. I can’t visualise a million.

For a visualisation of a million, i just picture a general assembly at the old high school.

Then, imagine 1,000 of those spread out over a vast field.

That’s just picturing a thousand “things” :)

Picture 40 jars of 100s and 1000s….

poikilotherm said:

Dropbear said:

captain_spalding said:

For a visualisation of a million, i just picture a general assembly at the old high school.

Then, imagine 1,000 of those spread out over a vast field.

That’s just picturing a thousand “things” :)

Picture 40 jars of 100s and 1000s….

You can’t..

You’re just picturing 40 jars.. You’re not in any sense aware of all the balls

Dropbear said:

captain_spalding said:

Dropbear said:

I can visualise 20 things. I can’t visualise a million.

For a visualisation of a million, i just picture a general assembly at the old high school.

Then, imagine 1,000 of those spread out over a vast field.

That’s just picturing a thousand “things” :)

Yer not wrong there.

Dropbear said:

poikilotherm said:

Dropbear said:

That’s just picturing a thousand “things” :)

Picture 40 jars of 100s and 1000s….

You can’t..

You’re just picturing 40 jars.. You’re not in any sense aware of all the balls

Spill em then

poikilotherm said:

Dropbear said:

poikilotherm said:

Picture 40 jars of 100s and 1000s….

You can’t..

You’re just picturing 40 jars.. You’re not in any sense aware of all the balls

Spill em then

Then IMO we’re back to my original proposition which is that just becomes 1 mass of things

poikilotherm said:

Dropbear said:

poikilotherm said:

Picture 40 jars of 100s and 1000s….

You can’t..

You’re just picturing 40 jars.. You’re not in any sense aware of all the balls

Spill em then

If you turn the radiators on you’ll get a very good idea of a million watts.

Ever see a metre rule graduated in cm, Droppy? Now imagine two of them, perpendicularly arranged, with the graduations extended to make 1cm² squares. Now add a third dimension, so you’ve got three mutually perpendicular rulers, and the little squares extended into the third dimension too. That’s a million cubes.

That wasn’t difficult, was it?

Now arrange a cube of them, 10 to a side. That’s a billion.

Wocky said:

Ever see a metre rule graduated in cm, Droppy? Now imagine two of them, perpendicularly arranged, with the graduations extended to make 1cm² squares. Now add a third dimension, so you’ve got three mutually perpendicular rulers, and the little squares extended into the third dimension too. That’s a million cubes.

That wasn’t difficult, was it?

Now arrange a cube of them, 10 to a side. That’s a billion.

But when they are all together, it’s just one mass ;)

Look I don’t want to give him tickets on himself, but I think Bear knows what a million is…

OCDC said:

Look I don’t want to give him tickets on himself, but I think Bear knows what a million is…

The ways I wuv thee

I know what a million US dollar looks like.

Fits easily into two small ‘carry-on’ bags.

In any case, visualisation is not the only way to understand a concept. There are plenty of things that can be easily understood but not visualised.

You don’t need those kind of complications. Just hold up one finger and count it a billion times.

Careful, or I’ll be sick.

OCDC said:

Look I don’t want to give him tickets on himself, but I think Bear knows what a million is…

I don’t doubt that for a second. I’m trying to give a way to visualise a million. And a billion, for that matter.

captain_spalding said:

I know what a million US dollar looks like.

Fits easily into two small ‘carry-on’ bags.

Sure, but you have no concept of each of those dollars..

There’s a good graphic on the web somewhere showing what a trillion dollars looks like

Bubblecar said:

You don’t need those kind of complications. Just hold up one finger and count it a billion times.

This one.

I can understand the concept of any number but that’s a pointless thing in terms of what the original sandy vag was all about

Dropbear said:

captain_spalding said:

I know what a million US dollar looks like.

Fits easily into two small ‘carry-on’ bags.

Sure, but you have no concept of each of those dollars..

There’s a good graphic on the web somewhere showing what a trillion dollars looks like

When you’re lugging a small zip bag with $500,000 in it, in a place where both it and you could disappear very quickly, you get a good ‘concept’ every one of those dollars.

Dropbear said:

Soso said:

Dropbear said:

Not really..

in terms of picturing a billion individual things and not just a great mass of stuff

But in that sense our grasp on numbers starts slipping after five. But who says “England made 155 runs, a number too vast for the human mind to grasp”?

I can visualise 20 things. I can’t visualise a million.

Well you can’t visualise 155 things, and no one thinks it remarkable. But apparently, once we get a billion (usually) people seem to need to gee-whiz things up by telling us it’s “so big you can’t even imagine it!”. In reality we deal with 1 billion just as well as we deal with 155. It kind of comes across as a bit of sop to the innumerate “don’t worry no-one really understands what a billion is”.

Soso said:

Dropbear said:

Soso said:

But in that sense our grasp on numbers starts slipping after five. But who says “England made 155 runs, a number too vast for the human mind to grasp”?

I can visualise 20 things. I can’t visualise a million.

Well you can’t visualise 155 things, and no one thinks it remarkable. But apparently, once we get a billion (usually) people seem to need to gee-whiz things up by telling us it’s “so big you can’t even imagine it!”. In reality we deal with 1 billion just as well as we deal with 155. It kind of comes across as a bit of sop to the innumerate “don’t worry no-one really understands what a billion is”.

You could lay out 155 things and I could look at them for a while and take it all in. Same with a thousand.. A billion no.

Dropbear said:

Soso said:

Dropbear said:

I can visualise 20 things. I can’t visualise a million.

Well you can’t visualise 155 things, and no one thinks it remarkable. But apparently, once we get a billion (usually) people seem to need to gee-whiz things up by telling us it’s “so big you can’t even imagine it!”. In reality we deal with 1 billion just as well as we deal with 155. It kind of comes across as a bit of sop to the innumerate “don’t worry no-one really understands what a billion is”.

You could lay out 155 things and I could look at them for a while and take it all in. Same with a thousand.. A billion no.

Walk along a mile of beach and count the grains of sand and blah

When I want to imagine a billion I picture a fly screen 2m x 2m with the wires 2mm apart, in a cube.
There are a billion little 2mm cubes in that 2m cube.

Yep, 19 shillings alright.