Introduction

In a few months, I will be making my 13th trip to Australia to compete in a couple of triathlons and participate in a series of events with co-author Grant Donovan from Australia promoting our new book, “The Wellness Orgasm: The Fun Way to Live Well and Die Happy.” “.

I love many things about Australia. It’s always a pleasure to be there, but one thing I really fear about visiting is the flights to and from Australia from the West Coast of the United States. The distance from Los Angeles to Sydney, for example, is 7,497 miles. The flight takes about 17 hours. I always feel like a zombie when I arrive. However, that journey pales in comparison to the time it takes to get to some places. Guess how long it would take to fly to an exotic vacation spot 5.88 billion miles away? Go ahead, make a guess.

The correct answer is a light year. Unfortunately, no mode of transportation reaches that speed, only light does.

a bit of perspective

Consider this: There are more than 100 billion stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way, and there are at least 100 billion other galaxies. Try to figure out how many stars it has, and don’t bother estimating how many planets must be going around all those stars! Just thinking about it makes my head spin, and these numbers only represent galaxies and stars in the known universe.

So isn’t it a bit strange that no god of any religion, including the current sky god of the Abrahamic religions of the modern age, has ever made reference to the vastness of the cosmos? No bible or other holy book offers insight into the extremely microscopic place that the Earth represents in the grand scheme of things. In fact, the Vatican made our sun go around the Earth until the 16th century. It makes me wonder about the reliability differences between science and religions as sources of knowledge about reality.

The 100,000 light years of our galaxy side by side. Most of us non-professional astronomers know this from listening to “The Galaxy Song” by Eric Idle, which is featured in the Monty Python movie “Meaning of Life.”

Review of “The Galaxy Song” by Eric Idle

Paul Kohlmiller wrote an essay for the San Jose Astronomical Association that examined every line of “The Galaxy Song” by Eric Idle. He wanted to see how it held up after decades of advances in scientific knowledge about the universe. Before you notice how accurate it was at the time, listen to the song, as it was an Eric Idle song in the movie:

Here’s every line from the song, and Mr. Kohlmiller’s assessment of the extent to which these lyrics have held up over the years.

* “Just remember you are standing on a planet that is evolving” – Yes, it is still spinning and life on the planet is still evolving, the creationist claims otherwise.

* “and revolving at nine hundred miles per hour”: Earth’s rotation is once a day and its circumference varies from the equator, but 900 mph is close enough.

* “That’s in orbit at nineteen miles per second, by the reckoning” – That’s still pretty close to the truth.

* “A sun that is the source of all our power” – Well, the sun is responsible for all wind, hydro, coal and oil, and solar energy. It may not be uranium, but it’s still basically all true.

* “The sun, you, me, and all the stars we can see are moving at a million miles a day”: Actually, it’s a little over 6 million miles a day.

* “In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles per hour” – The first part is perfect, the second part (at the new figure of 6 million miles per day) would now be 250,000 MPH.

* “From the galaxy we call ‘Milky Way'” – It’s still called that and isn’t likely to change its name anytime soon.

* “Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars”: Some astronomers suspect there might be a little more, but the quiescent number still holds up well. While there have been some estimates that go a little over 100 billion stars, this is still a pretty good estimate.

* “It’s a hundred thousand light years from side to side” – Give or take 20,000, this is still the current estimate.

* “It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light-years thick” – Estimates vary widely from 10 to 30 thousand light-years for the center of the galaxy.

* “But outside of us, it is only three thousand light years wide” – Checked.

* “We are thirty thousand light years from the galactic central point” – Check

* “We go around every two hundred million years” – Check

* “And our galaxy is just one among millions of trillions” – Oops. Current thinking is that there are “only” millions of billions, but astronomers are still counting.

* “In this amazing and expanding universe” – Check.

* “The universe itself continues to expand and expand in every direction it can spin.” -Check

* “As fast as it can go, the speed of light, you know” – This one is a bit tricky. As Kohlmiller explains: “But matter generally can’t move at the speed of light, so the rate of expansion is somewhat slower. On the other hand, there was a time in the early universe when it seemed to expand at a speed greater than the speed of light.”

* “Twelve million miles per minute, and that’s the fastest speed there is” – Check

* “So remember, when you feel very small and insecure, how incredibly unlikely your birth is” – Kohlmiller: “The Human Genome Project has found 30,000 genes. It would take only 33 genes to make each living person unique.”

* “And pray that there is intelligent life somewhere in space” – Kohlmiller: “Hence my membership in the SETI Team.”

* “Because there is shit here on Earth” – Kohlmiller: “An unquestionable truth.”

summarizing

Well, if these facts about the universe and our modest place in it don’t give you pause or evoke a healthy WO, you might want to play the song one more time.

Feel good and, more than ever, look on the bright side of life.