Post by crazycat on Jul 18, 2006 17:31:16 GMT -5
I was sent this in an e-mail and wanted to share. 
Some Numbers and the Real
1 hr. = 60 min. = 3600 seconds; 1 day = 24 hrs = 86,400 seconds; 1yr = approx. 32 million seconds. It would take someone over 1 year to count to 32 million--counting non-stop, day and night. It would take a person more than 3 years counting non-stop to count to somewhat less than 100 million. And 30 years to reach 1 billion. And it would take 30,000 years to count to 1 trillion.
Light travels at about 300,000 km. per second. The earth's equatorial circle = about 40,000 km. So light could travel around the earth 7 times in one second, and in fact, almost 8 times. In astronomy, the distances are so immense that the unit of measure is the distance light travels, not in one second, but in one year. The nearest star to the earth is 4.3 light years away or 40 trillion km. To count to this number would take someone 1.2 million years, non-stop, one number every second. The pyramids were built only 4,000 years ago.
The Solar System
The sun is 1.3 million times the size of the earth, which is 150 million km. away, or 8 light minutes. The sun converts 4 million tons of matter into energy each second, only a very small fraction of which reaches the earth, and yet it is enough to drive all its processes.
If the sun were reduced to the size of a grapefruit, and the earth were to be proportionately reduced, it would be a very small grain of sand about 12 yards away; Pluto, the farthest planet, would be another grain of sand about half a km. away, while the nearest star, Alpha Centauri, would be another grapefruit 3,000 km away. Between Pluto and Alpha Centauri there would be nothing but empty space for 3,000 km.
Other types of astronomical figures are equally impressive. Suffice it to say that one teaspoonful of matter from a dwarf star would weigh` 15 thousand tons.
Our sun with its solar system is located at the edge of the Milky Way galaxy, which has a diameter of 125 light years. Remember that the star nearest us is a mere 4.3 light years away. Our galaxy contains 100 billion stars, many of which are larger than the sun. Our sun circles the galactic center at a speed of 220 km. per second, and thus completes one revolution every 250 million years.
The Milky Way is just one of a few dozen galaxies which make up what is termed The Local Group of galaxies: it includes the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, which are irregular galaxies close to ours; and it also includes the Andromeda galaxy which lies 2.3 million light years away. All told, the Local Group contains countless stars--recall that our own Milky Way alone contains 100 billion.
Beyond the Local Group, and invisible to the eye, lies the Virgo Cluster, which comprises some 2,500 galaxies--galaxies, not stars. Galaxies tend to come in clusters, as well as in clusters of cluster, or superclusters. Our Local Group together with Virgo are both members of the Local Supercluster.
After the Local Supercluster, in every direction, one can observe clusters and superclusters. There are perhaps a billion observable galaxies. This shows that it is as easy for the Real to manifest galaxies as it is to create atoms or grains of sand.
Close to the edge of the visible universe, are the quasars, which emit the energy of thousands of galaxies from an area much maller than the Milky Way. To get an idea of the energy of a quasar, imagine a giant 1000megawatt power plant. Now multiply this by 10 billion. Then take this figure and multiply it by one billion trillion. That is just one quasar.
Since light takes time to reach us, to look into space is to look into the past. The light of the farthest quasars, 14 billion light years away, set out to reach us 14 billion yuears ago. That is very close to the beginning of the observable universe.
The original universe burst into existence from a "point" comparable to the invisible and dimensionless point of origin of a circle. While the universe was still a speck billions of times smaller than a single proton, it had a temperature of a million trillion trillion degrees. It began to differentiate into the known universe at the so-called Planck time, or one-ten thousand million billion trillion trillionths of a second later.
To get a further idea of the immensity of outer space, consider that the Hubble telescope was trained on an unremarkable path of sky one quarter the apparent size of the full moon, in order to make "Deep Field" observations. The images revealed some 3,000 galaxies, many of which were more than a billion times fainter than what can be seen with the naked eye.
The dizzying and dazzling splendor, immensity, and majesty of the visible universe is beyond description and beyond human comprehension. The mind-numbing numbers only hint at its unfathomable depths. The spectacle of creation is revealed to be so immense that human beings are not even specks on earth, and the earth is not even a speck in the Milky Way, which in turn is not even a speck among the countless other galaxies. Compared to the age of the earth, the history of earthly humanity is a an infinitesimal flicker. This whole picture would be crushing were it not for the stunning fact that man can actually conceive this totality, and can discern that even the unimaginable immensity of the physical universe is in turn is so to speak contained in what can be termed "animic" reality, of which our thinking and feeling souls, which survive physical death, are a part, just as our bodies are part of the physical or material universe, and which all spiritual traditions assure us! is far greater than then etire sphere of reality which is perceivable by our senses; not only this, but this immensity in its turn contained by the spiritual or supraformal degree of reality, in comparison with which the entire physical universe together with its "animic" container is itself a kind of fugitive content; and finally, beyond this, incomparably transcendent and yet--amazingly--immanent, is the immensity and splendor of the Creative Principle, in which all of the immeasurable extension of relative reality "lives and moves and has its being" as easily as a little bit of foam lies on an ocean. But even this is not the ultimate, for the Creative Principle is in turn surpassed by the "pure Absolute" which is the Infinite as such.
This ability to step outside creation and even consider its ultimate Cause, in conceiving of the Absolutely Real, is the miracle of the human spiritual intellect. That man's intelligence can conceive all this, and conceive even the absolutely Real, proves in its way that man is indeed created in the image of the Divine Principle, and that his physical size and the length of his earthly life are the least important things about him, for what counts are not quantitative data, but the purely qualitative ones of the gifts which are implied in his intelligent spiritual nature, and how he disposes of these gifts in this life--whether he wastes or makes use of his unique God-given human "talents." All this is why faith in the Almighty should be an easy thing for us, and why we must strive to live in accordance with this faith, and why it is that for God, truly all things are possible.
Some Numbers and the Real
1 hr. = 60 min. = 3600 seconds; 1 day = 24 hrs = 86,400 seconds; 1yr = approx. 32 million seconds. It would take someone over 1 year to count to 32 million--counting non-stop, day and night. It would take a person more than 3 years counting non-stop to count to somewhat less than 100 million. And 30 years to reach 1 billion. And it would take 30,000 years to count to 1 trillion.
Light travels at about 300,000 km. per second. The earth's equatorial circle = about 40,000 km. So light could travel around the earth 7 times in one second, and in fact, almost 8 times. In astronomy, the distances are so immense that the unit of measure is the distance light travels, not in one second, but in one year. The nearest star to the earth is 4.3 light years away or 40 trillion km. To count to this number would take someone 1.2 million years, non-stop, one number every second. The pyramids were built only 4,000 years ago.
The Solar System
The sun is 1.3 million times the size of the earth, which is 150 million km. away, or 8 light minutes. The sun converts 4 million tons of matter into energy each second, only a very small fraction of which reaches the earth, and yet it is enough to drive all its processes.
If the sun were reduced to the size of a grapefruit, and the earth were to be proportionately reduced, it would be a very small grain of sand about 12 yards away; Pluto, the farthest planet, would be another grain of sand about half a km. away, while the nearest star, Alpha Centauri, would be another grapefruit 3,000 km away. Between Pluto and Alpha Centauri there would be nothing but empty space for 3,000 km.
Other types of astronomical figures are equally impressive. Suffice it to say that one teaspoonful of matter from a dwarf star would weigh` 15 thousand tons.
Our sun with its solar system is located at the edge of the Milky Way galaxy, which has a diameter of 125 light years. Remember that the star nearest us is a mere 4.3 light years away. Our galaxy contains 100 billion stars, many of which are larger than the sun. Our sun circles the galactic center at a speed of 220 km. per second, and thus completes one revolution every 250 million years.
The Milky Way is just one of a few dozen galaxies which make up what is termed The Local Group of galaxies: it includes the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, which are irregular galaxies close to ours; and it also includes the Andromeda galaxy which lies 2.3 million light years away. All told, the Local Group contains countless stars--recall that our own Milky Way alone contains 100 billion.
Beyond the Local Group, and invisible to the eye, lies the Virgo Cluster, which comprises some 2,500 galaxies--galaxies, not stars. Galaxies tend to come in clusters, as well as in clusters of cluster, or superclusters. Our Local Group together with Virgo are both members of the Local Supercluster.
After the Local Supercluster, in every direction, one can observe clusters and superclusters. There are perhaps a billion observable galaxies. This shows that it is as easy for the Real to manifest galaxies as it is to create atoms or grains of sand.
Close to the edge of the visible universe, are the quasars, which emit the energy of thousands of galaxies from an area much maller than the Milky Way. To get an idea of the energy of a quasar, imagine a giant 1000megawatt power plant. Now multiply this by 10 billion. Then take this figure and multiply it by one billion trillion. That is just one quasar.
Since light takes time to reach us, to look into space is to look into the past. The light of the farthest quasars, 14 billion light years away, set out to reach us 14 billion yuears ago. That is very close to the beginning of the observable universe.
The original universe burst into existence from a "point" comparable to the invisible and dimensionless point of origin of a circle. While the universe was still a speck billions of times smaller than a single proton, it had a temperature of a million trillion trillion degrees. It began to differentiate into the known universe at the so-called Planck time, or one-ten thousand million billion trillion trillionths of a second later.
To get a further idea of the immensity of outer space, consider that the Hubble telescope was trained on an unremarkable path of sky one quarter the apparent size of the full moon, in order to make "Deep Field" observations. The images revealed some 3,000 galaxies, many of which were more than a billion times fainter than what can be seen with the naked eye.
The dizzying and dazzling splendor, immensity, and majesty of the visible universe is beyond description and beyond human comprehension. The mind-numbing numbers only hint at its unfathomable depths. The spectacle of creation is revealed to be so immense that human beings are not even specks on earth, and the earth is not even a speck in the Milky Way, which in turn is not even a speck among the countless other galaxies. Compared to the age of the earth, the history of earthly humanity is a an infinitesimal flicker. This whole picture would be crushing were it not for the stunning fact that man can actually conceive this totality, and can discern that even the unimaginable immensity of the physical universe is in turn is so to speak contained in what can be termed "animic" reality, of which our thinking and feeling souls, which survive physical death, are a part, just as our bodies are part of the physical or material universe, and which all spiritual traditions assure us! is far greater than then etire sphere of reality which is perceivable by our senses; not only this, but this immensity in its turn contained by the spiritual or supraformal degree of reality, in comparison with which the entire physical universe together with its "animic" container is itself a kind of fugitive content; and finally, beyond this, incomparably transcendent and yet--amazingly--immanent, is the immensity and splendor of the Creative Principle, in which all of the immeasurable extension of relative reality "lives and moves and has its being" as easily as a little bit of foam lies on an ocean. But even this is not the ultimate, for the Creative Principle is in turn surpassed by the "pure Absolute" which is the Infinite as such.
This ability to step outside creation and even consider its ultimate Cause, in conceiving of the Absolutely Real, is the miracle of the human spiritual intellect. That man's intelligence can conceive all this, and conceive even the absolutely Real, proves in its way that man is indeed created in the image of the Divine Principle, and that his physical size and the length of his earthly life are the least important things about him, for what counts are not quantitative data, but the purely qualitative ones of the gifts which are implied in his intelligent spiritual nature, and how he disposes of these gifts in this life--whether he wastes or makes use of his unique God-given human "talents." All this is why faith in the Almighty should be an easy thing for us, and why we must strive to live in accordance with this faith, and why it is that for God, truly all things are possible.
