Saturday, May 30, 2009

We Are Less Than a Pixel!

The images below depict the size of the earth compared to some planets and stars. Labels are in Portuguese, unfortunately, but I guess the planets and their names are easily recognizeable. The pictures give us an idea of how small we are in such a huge universe.


And some people still kill and die for temporarily ownership and power over minimal parts of that small fraction of a pixel. People that fight for having influence and power for an ephemeral instant in time in a very small point in space. For some reason, I think a smile is more important. I think fun is more important. A hug and a kiss. I think love is more important. Love for people, not for things. "To be" rather than "to have". For some reason I think such things transcend our tiny size and influence in this huge and indifferent Universe.

I don't know who to credit for the images. I've got them from an Orkut community without any reference.

The video below is well related to this post, and actually inspired it, together with the images above. The video is by Carl Sagan, American astronomer and writer of whom I am a big fan.



This post was translated from the original in my blog in portuguese published in August 2008.

2 comments:

Sapna said...

I was remembered of the "Frogs in a well" attitude somehow. I think it fits somewhere.

Unknown said...

Yep, or Plato's "Allegory of the Cave". It is amazing how some philosophical ideas are so true that they keep recurring over and over again on many different situations of human existence.