I would like to suggest that the history of science is the history of an enlarging understanding of the universe, its evolution, its history, and its structure. We have engaged the universe at the very limits of our capacity. We have explored the world of the microcosm and the world of the macrocosm. We have found at both extremes incredible complexity. The universe, beginning from an unimaginably hot and dense singularity, evolved through a series of stages, each producing the condition necessary for the succeeding stage. Our sun, our solar system, our planet, our own beings are all late stages of this evolving universe. The insights of cosmology and theoretical astronomy have served to tie us ever more tightly into the emerging story of the universe itself. The history of the universe is our history. We emerged from the same vast processes that created galaxies and suns and stars and planets. We are all of us recycled stardust.
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There are some hundred billion (10^11) galaxies, each with, on the average, a hundred billion stars. In all the galaxies, there are perhaps as many planets as stars, 10^11 x 10^11 = 10^22, ten billion trillion. In the face of such overpowering numbers, what is the likelihood that only one ordinary star, the Sun, is accompanied by an inhabited planet? Why should we, tucked away in some forgotten corner of the Cosmos, be so fortunate? To me, it seems far more likely that the universe is brimming over with life. But we humans do not yet know. We are just beginning our explorations. The only planet we are sure is inhabited is a tiny speck of rock and metal, shining feebly by reflected sunlight, and at this distance utterly lost.'
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In fact, it seems that present-day science, with one sweeping step back across millions of centuries, has succeeded in bearing witness to that primordial ' Fiat lux ' Let there be light uttered at the moment when, along with matter, there burst forth from nothing a sea of light and radiation, while the particles of the chemical elements split and formed into millions of galaxies ... Hence, creation took place in time, therefore, there is a Creator, God exists!
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I am undecided whether or not the Milky Way is but one of countless others all of which form an entire system. Perhaps the light from these infinitely distant galaxies is so faint that we cannot see them.
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I've been thinking about that old Zen conundrum what's the sound of one hand clapping My personal opinion--nothing. You don't have two hands, you don't have any clapping. It's as simple as that. Stars, galaxies, clapping hands, what's the point The point is that we all need somebody, whether you're a supercluster or a little proton, a yin or a yang. Everybody is hooked into everybody else.
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But, you know what life really is? You're born, you suck your mother's tits. You get a little older, you suck your girlfriend's tits. You get married, you suck your wife's tits. That's what life is. Life sucks.
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Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.
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I am a being of Heaven and Earth, of thunder and lightning, of rain and wind, of the galaxies.
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What happens when we're dead? The irony is that all our questions wil be answered after we die. We spend our whole life trying to figure out the truth and the only way we'll find out what it is, is to get hit by a bus. And the only comfort that religion offers is that God is driving that bus.
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I don't believe anything. I only know some things to a greater degree of certainty than others. - from When Galaxies Collide
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