Re: [Vo]:Sloan Digital Sky Survey
Time to go back to work on the ol' FTL drive... On Sat, Feb 22, 2014 at 7:31 AM, Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: From the Daily Grail: In his wonderful fictional series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the late Douglas Adams introduced the 'Total Perspective Vortex' - a machine built by inventor Trin Tragula, who after being constantly nagged by his wife to Have some sense of proportion! (sometimes as often as thirty-eight times in a single day), decided to build a machine just to show her. Into one end, he plugged the whole of reality (in classic Adams fashion, extrapolated from a piece of fairy cake), and into the other he plugged his wife, so that she would be shown in one instant the whole infinity of creation and herself in relation to it. To his horror, Trin Tragula realized that this single, devastating shock had completely annihilated his wife's brain, but to his satisfaction he realized that he had proved conclusively that if life is going to exist in a Universe of this size, then one thing it cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion. I don't have any fairy cake on hand, but the above video is pretty close to being a Total Perspective Vortex: it's an accurate 3-dimensional model and animation created out of data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), showing some 400,000 galaxies in their actual position in the Universe. High resolution and full-screen recommended! Remember: each of those points of light is a complete galaxy, each with 100 billion stars or more within them. And in case that all doesn't blow your mind enough, it's worth pointing out that this 3D representation only includes all objects out to redshift 0.1 - roughly 1.3 billion light years from Earth, about 1/10 of the distance to the edge of the known Universe. And the perspective given in this video is actually impossible, as to see the Universe in this way would require traveling at many times the speed of light. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08LBltePDZw (Well worth the 1min 49 sec)
RE: [Vo]:Sloan Digital Sky Survey
I watched it a couple of times. The first time my brain hiccupped resulting in a weird optical illusion where the very far away galaxies started to move in the wrong direction. My brain couldn't make sense of it. Had to give the wetware a reboot. Ok the second time around. A fun trip. Thanks T. Makes me think of Seuss's Horton Hears a Who. Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson svjart.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/newvortex/
Re: [Vo]:Sloan Digital Sky Survey
The same thing happened to me. The background galaxies seemed to come to the front after a while. It really brings home how tiny we are compared to the universe. Every time I look at galaxies, I find it so difficult to imagine that each star is as far away as our sun is from its neighbors. Truly incredible. Dave -Original Message- From: OrionWorks - Steven Vincent Johnson orionwo...@charter.net To: vortex-l vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Fri, Feb 21, 2014 10:05 pm Subject: RE: [Vo]:Sloan Digital Sky Survey I watched it a couple of times. The first time my brain hiccupped resulting in a weird optical illusion where the very far away galaxies started to move in the wrong direction. My brain couldn't make sense of it. Had to give the wetware a reboot. Ok the second time around. A fun trip. Thanks T. Makes me think of Seuss's Horton Hears a Who. Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson svjart.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/newvortex/
Re: [Vo]:Sloan Digital Sky Survey
On Fri, Feb 21, 2014 at 10:31 AM, Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08LBltePDZw (Well worth the 1min 49 sec) Thank you. The galaxies look like tiny little motes on the wind on a spring day, where the wind blows innumerable flower petals from the trees. Given all of those galaxies, and the large number of stars for each galaxy, it seems reasonable to conclude that there is at least one earth-like planet out there with life on it. Anyone have an estimate of how many earth-like planets might exist in the region in the video? I'm guessing there are more than 10. Eric
Re: [Vo]:Sloan Digital Sky Survey
On Fri, Feb 21, 2014 at 10:06 PM, OrionWorks - Steven Vincent Johnson orionwo...@charter.net wrote: A fun trip. Thanks T. I must admit, I did think of you when I posted it. Do you think Whoville can make its self heard? Should we?
RE: [Vo]:Sloan Digital Sky Survey
Terry sez: Do you think Whoville can make its self heard? Should we? Guess it D'pends on which permutation of the marble we exist within. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJOVUF-HaDw#aid=P9e_eo9PB4Q Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson svjart.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/newvortex/
