The Standard Model - 6. The Fundamental

"It would be a poor thing to be an atom in a universe without physicists, and physicists are made of atoms. A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms."

George Wald

Before we continue the theory of the Standard Model any longer we have to consider what the overall goal is:

The Fundamental.

The 'fundamental', 'fundamental particle' or 'fundamental constituent of matter' is the goal for particle physics - to find something that makes up all matter. The origins of particle physics started when people considered what makes up the visible world around us. People like the pre-socratics (philosophers before Socrates), the ancient Chinese or the ancient Indians thought the fundamentals could be found in the elements of our world - not the periodic table but fire, air, earth and water. The first person to propose an atomic theory of matter was Democritus, another pre-socratic philosopher who thought that matter was made up of tiny, inert bodies which we know today as atoms.
Atomic Theory continued to be developed until the atom was fully realised and the periodic table was established in the 19th Century. The word atom comes from the Greek atomos which means 'indivisible', however today we all know that atoms are not fundamental. Each element has a different atomic structure so the so called 'building blocks of the Universe' turn out to have more and more building blocks themselves.
We now know that the atom comprises of protons, neutrons and electrons - these protons and neutrons are comprised of quarks which are held together by gluons and until further evidence is found the next stage in a mystery.

The search for the fundamental particle reminds me of a Koch Snowflake (which is a type of fractal), this 'snowflake' starts off as a single triangle which keeps having smaller triangles - with the length a third of one side of the previous added on ... let me show you:

A Koch Snowflake Fractal
(Click to Zoom)

No matter how hard we try to keep dividing matter until we find it's fundamental we are just left with more and more options - a type of 'Particle Zoo', this leads to methods like the Standard Model which try to bring order to the chaos of modern physics.
Thanks for reading this post on the fundamental and I will post more on the subject of particle physics and what makes up our Universe soon. Thanks, Chris.

'Alien' planets.

“It is surely unreasonable to credit that only one small star in the immensity of the universe is capable of developing and supporting intelligent life. But we shall not get to them and they will not come to us.” 

- P.D. James.

Have you ever wondered that age old question; are we alone? This unanswerable question (period) has daunted man for centuries, the question we cannot know; only ponder. 

Many people have tried to prove intelligent life exists, and many have failed. Even the slightest proof of said life, would cause a complete uproar. Wars would break out, and our society would crumble. Yes, I encourage people to be open minded, but sometimes there is a line. Like with religion.

It does have good ethics, yes - I agree. But some of their beliefs I cannot comprehend why on Earth they believe it. 

One man, Frank Drake came up with a equation, rightly named The Drake Equation. This equation was a complex formula that he predicted could work out how many civilisations are in our galaxy, that could communicate.


One derivation of the formula is: N = N* Fp Ne Fl Fi Fc fL


N =  The number of communicating civilisations in the galaxy.
N* = The number of stars in our galaxy.
Fp = Is the fraction of stars that have planets around them.
Ne = number of planets per star, which could 'sustain' life.
Fl = Is the number of planets in which life evolves.
Fi = Is the number of planets which evolve into intelligent life.
Fc = Is the number of planets from the previous that try to communicate.
fL = The hardest one, it is the fraction of the planet's life, which the "communicating civilisations" live.


Lets try it out:


100billion * .50 * 1 * .50 * 0.3 (?) * .50 * (1/100,000,000.) = N


N = ... 37.5!


According to this version of the Drake equation, 37.5 planets in our galaxy are communicating civilisations. Keep in mind though, that the Drake equation is not exact, we can change the variables in it to suit what we think. You can believe it if you want, or you can be more practical - and find the planets.


What if we did communicate with 'them' though? Well truth is, you could only send 3 messages there, and receive 2 back, in your life time that is. This is only for 1 planet, which was named Gliese 581g. Its is a planet found, that may be able to sustain life.


Since nothing can bypass the speed of light (or can they?) it would take 41 (approx.) years to send and receive even the simplest messages. So I don't think we should look forward to having an 'msn' conversation with our good alien friends anytime soon.


To conclude, do you ever look up and think, are we alone? Just think, when you think this someone, something, somewhere may be looking back thinking the same thing - about you. Do you think we are alone? I don't. Only time will tell, and let this great tale unfold.


Thanks for reading, Ben.

The Standard Model - 5. Force Carriers

The Interractions, their force carriers and what they act on.

We've identified some of the constituents of matter that make up our Universe however now we need to know how they interact. Every force (or 'interaction') in our Universe is governed by the force carriers. The four force carriers we use in the Standard Model are Gluons (which carry the strong force), Photons (which carry the electromagnetic force), The W and Z bosons (which carry the weak force) and the questionable graviton (which carries the gravitational force ... or gravity). All forces in the world exist because of these four interactions, for example: nuclear decay, magnetism, friction etc.

1. Gravity: The Gravitational Force depends on the Graviton - a particle that is predict to carry gravity. However this particle has never been observed and so it's existence is questionable. If it does exist though, it is thought to have no mass and no charge. All known matter is affected whether directly or indirectly by gravity.

2. The Weak Force: One carrier for the weak force, the W boson can be both positively or negatively charged while the other; the Z boson, is neutral. The carriers have a lot of mass compared to some particles which makes the weak force ... well a 'weak' force. The weak force is responsible for decaying leptons and large quarks into smaller lighter leptons and quarks. Weak force and electromagnetic can be summed up in one section in the standard model as 'Electroweak', this is because at extremely short distances the strength of these forces has been observed as similar.

3. Electromagnetic: Photons are the carrier for electromagnetism, as well as 'carrying' the light that we see around us. This force causes same-charged things to repel and things which hold an opposite charge to react - so this interaction governs such forces as friction and magnetism. The photon has no mass and travels at a constant 300,000,000 meters per second (or the speed of light) in a vacuum.

4.Strong Force: Gluon's are the carriers for the strong force and they don't have mass or charge. They carry a special property which bounds quarks together. Since quarks make up protons and neutrons, these elements of matter are also held together by the strong force as without their constituents being held together, they would not function.

Thanks for reading another section on Particle Physics and The Standard Model, Chris.

Our Universe is a Brain.

"Everything is perfect in the universe - even your desire to improve it" - Wayne Dyer

Top is the Brain neurone of a mouse.
Botton is the Universe.

Look at the image to the right, they look quite alike - right? As the caption says, the top photo is a brain neurone. It is only micrometers wide, that is tiny. 1×10^-6 metres, this is 0.001mm. 


The bottom photo is billions of light years across, it is a computer simulated rendering of our Universe's growth. The bottom picture is filled with dark matter, and clusters of galaxies. 


The resemblance is remarkable. You can clearly see a correlation between the two. 


So then, you know what i'm going to ask.


Do we just exist in a brain? 


Are we just microscopic 'things' living in the brain of something far bigger than us? And is what we are living in, living in someone else's brain?


It reminds me of 'The Sims', the computer game. We're controlling people through a computer - what if people are controlling our actions through a computer, or in this case a brain? 


It is simply mind blowing, we cannot comprehend the vastness of our own Universe, never mind a bigger one, and bigger.


What if though.


What if we are just microscopic, useless in a sense. But relatively we are quite big, when compared to other things. Like for example, a pair of slippers? Or a spider.


What if, in our brain there is a Universe? And in that Universe, everyone's brain has another Universe. It becomes smaller and smaller. If this was the case, how many universes would there be? Trillions, quintillions, octillions even?


Our brain is the most complex thing in the Universe. But doesn't that mean, a universe is the most complicated thing in the Universe? Its confusing; hard to comprehend even slightly.


To conclude, what do you think? Are we just microscopic life forms, doing simple tasks for a higher being? Could the brain we are lodged in be God? We could be just lodged in the brain of a deity. But then, doesn't that make us Gods? I don't think it could ever be proved that we are in a brain, in fact the odds are against it, completely. 


Thanks for reading, Ben.

The Standard Model - 4. Lepton Decay

Muons and Tau; the heavier of the leptons, aren't found in ordinary matter as when these Leptons are produced they decay into lighter forms of leptons. When a Lepton decays it transforms into its respective neutrino and other constituents of matter (e.g muon neutrino, quark and anti quark).

Terms used to determine lepton decay are 'electron number', 'muon number' and 'tau number', these are used to show what outcomes could be successful when leptons decay.

These numbers all add up and are conserved.

For example, a successful outcome for a tau decay is: electron + electron anti neutrino + tau neutrino. When a lepton decays the electron number, muon number and tau number all are conserved.

Physicists have observed that some decays can happen while others cannot,

to reach this conclusion they divided the leptons into families:

The Electron and it's neutrino,

The Muon and it's neutrino,

and the Tau and it's neutrino.

The members of these 'families' must remain constant in a decay i.e an particle & antiparticle cancel each other out.

Again this is only another short post as I am doing this 'mini-series' of blogs about the standard model in small segments - Thanks, Chris.

The Standard Model - 3. Photons.

"The photons are smaller than the distance between atoms in the material." - Brain Dennis

Photons, one of the most controversial 'waves' in physics, it is also on of the most controversial 'particles' in physics.


Yup.


Its both.


A photon travels, or if you want to be smart, propagates like a wave- but it interacts with other particles, like a particle.


Photons are massless, they have a rest mass of 0 (or at least thought be). They also do not have an electric charge. They also do not decay 'spontaneously' in space.


Many people argue that a photon does have mass, and that you can work it out by using E=hc/λ and E=mc^2.


'h' is Plancks constant. 'c' is The Speed of Light. 'λ' is wavelegnth. 'm' is mass. 'E' is energy.


Lets begin. Lets work out h*c.


6.626x10-34 m2 kg/s * 299 792 458 m/s = 1.98644521 x 10-25 m3kg/s2


Now, hc divided by λ.


1.98644521 x 10-25 / 6x10^-7 m = 3.310742016 × 10^-19 J/photon


Now since Einstein states E=mass*the speed of light squared, we should be able to work out the mass of a photon by rearranging E=mc^2 to m=e/c^2.


Since E equals 3.310742016 × 10^-19. And c equals 89875517873681764 m/s.


(3.310742016 × 10^-19)/(89875517873681764) = ...


3.68369728968146969223080587318626973320286501289902 x 10^-33g


A tiny amount, but this states it has mass, since it has energy.


But, since we live in a finite universe in my opinion, an infinite amount of energy is needed for a particle with mass to travel a 'c'. This states a photon is massless.


The photon doesn't react with the Higgs field, the Higgs fields contains countless 'Higgs Bosons', which allows particles to gain mass.


We are still confused by the photon, and whether it has mass. But since we are coming closer to finding the Higgs boson, we might be able to explain why it doesn't react with the Higgs field.


But then the question, if a photon is massless - how is it affected by gravity?

Well, a photon travels in straight lines in space-time, but they are warped by the curvature of space-time. Due to nearby large masses, or black holes.

To conclude, do you think a photon has mass? Or is totally massless? I think it's massless. This year many amazing things will happen if we have found the Higgs boson, especially with the photon and other massless particles.

Thanks for Reading, Ben. 

The Standard Model - 2. Leptons & focus on Electrons

Leptons & Electron Wave-Particle Duality 

Another group of the constituents of matter; the Leptons are made up of:

-The Electron (e)
-The Muon (μ)
-The Tau (τ)
and their neutrinos:
-The Electron Neutrino (ν
e)

-The Muon Neutrino  (ν
μ)

-and the Tau Neutrino (ν
τ)

 

Of the six leptons, three have an electric charge (the electron, the muon and the tau) and their neutrinos do not. Also for every lepton there is a respective ‘antilepton’.

The most fundamental and well known Lepton particle is most likely the electron, which plays huge roles in chemistry and physics. Electrons orbit the central nucleus of an atom which contains protons and neutrons. A famous quantum mechanics experiment which involves electrons; the double slit experiment, shows that electrons can act as both a particle – and a wave.

The diagram shows a screen with two slits, and a target at the back which registers the particle when it reaches the target.

Following the conventional rules of physics, if particles (or any similar objects for this test, i.e bullets) are shot through the slits it is expected that two patterns will form.
This would be relative to the number of slits, e.g two slits = two sites which the projectiles are recorded.

 However if the process uses  waves instead of particles the results are different ...

With waves, as their is two slits open - the waves diffract with both, interfere on the other side and a different pattern is formed; the interference pattern.

However for this to work for electrons they would need to go interact (thus go through) two slits at once, and arrive at the target on the other side.

*Please excuse my hideous diagrams ... they'll get better - I promise ...

This was just a brief post about Leptons and a quick focus on the wave-particle duality of electrons, so in my next post I will expand on Leptons and talk about Lepton decay.

Hope you enjoyed this little dose of particle physics - Thanks, Chris.

Motivation.

"If you do not hope, you will not find what is beyond your hopes." - St. Clement of Alexandra

Motivation is a key part of all of our lives. Other than the compulsory elements; motivation is one of the key aspects to living, surviving and prospering. Everything, literally every action you choose to do requires motivation. Some of us being motivated far easier than others.

We live in a world in which we are brought up to expect everything to come to us very easily. The way our society works is that you have to work to gain your expectations. Only the richest get what they want easily. 

In a world that is getting harder to get a job, we must start younger. I want to be a physicist when I am older, and I am acquiring many of the skills I will need at a very young age. Researching things I will not have to actually learn for another 2 years, to 4. Getting ahead of your opponents is a necessity now, we need to surpass our competition in order to make our selves known to the world.

Another aspect that is key in our lives is perseverance, if we do not persevere, we will not come near our targets. An example of perseverance revolves around my idol, one of the men I aspire to be like.

Albert Einstein.

After graduating Einstein suffered 2 painful years looking for a teaching post. He then did his thesis, and was awarded a PhD. Einstein's dissertation was named "A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions". That year was Einstein's miracle year, he published 4 papers. They were amazing, they made him known to the scientific community. (The papers were his papers on Brownian Motion, Special Relativity, Photoelectric Effect and the Equivalence of Matter and Energy.)

Einstein failed many times during all of his theories, but he persevered and look at him now. He is idolised by many and is renown for his contribution in physics.

So you, sitting here reading this. What are you doing for you future? Are you giving yourself a head start in life? You should be, if you want to accomplish anything in this lifetime, you need to get up and make yourself known. Do your research, revise your subjects and ignore any discrimination.

"You think you know everything."

I get this quote directed at me daily now, and i'm unsure why. I could be arrogant, or people could be just jealous in a sense? I admit I want to know everything, and I will strive to that goal of ultimate knowledge. I constantly try at everything I do, and I succeed quite a lot. Im a determined person. My attitudes toward intelligence make me a wiser person than many others.

"I wasn't trying, I'll do better next time."

I hear this cliche quite a lot. The fact people say this reflects quite a lot on the person they are, it points toward an insecurity of fear of failure. Fear of not being on par with others, in my opinion. If you do worse than someone else, don't say "Oh I wasn't trying", thats just tricking yourself into thinking you dont need to improve. Tell yourself, "oh at least I tried, ill strive to surpass my target next time, ill strive to overcome everyone." That determination is the type you need in life to get far.

To conclude, what have you done lately? Sat, browsed Facebook and Twitter? Or researched your future? I think we both know the answer. Do something about your life. "We life in a world of free speech yet no one has anything to say" be the one to change the system, make yourself known. 

Get ahead in the race to success.

As always - Thanks for reading, Ben.

The Standard Model - 1. Quarks

Green - Quarks
Red - Leptons
Blue - Force Carriers

"If I could remember the names of all these particles, I'd be a botanist."
Enrico Fermi

The Standard Model was established to create order within the 'Particle Zoo', it's aim is to collect the basic building blocks into one ordered table and explain how these sub-atomic particles interact with each other. At the moment it is comprised of 12 particles of matter and 4 force carriers, however additions to the standard model may become frequent in the near future as particle physics is refined and the search for these 'infamous' particles (Higgs Boson, Graviton etc.) continues.

"quark, quark"

The QuarksThere are six 'flavours' of quarks (along with the anti-counterparts) which can be divided in 3 groups:
-u (up)/d (down) 
-c (charm)/s (strange)
-t (top)/b (bottom).

Unlike protons and neutrons which have whole number charges, quarks have fractional charges - up, charm and top having 2/3 of a charge and down, strange and bottom having -1/3 of a charge.

In a way they are the building blocks, of the building blocks of the things we see around us - quarks make up protons and neutrons which (along with electrons) make up atoms.

This is just a short post for now but I'll continue with Leptons and Force Carriers in later posts. Thanks for Reading - Chris.

Dreams.

"A series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person's mind during sleep." - Google definition

Like stated, a dream is a series of images etc that occur involuntarily in your mind during sleep. You generally have dreams in the REM phase (Rapid eye movement) of your sleep. During this phase, the activity going on in your brain is high, and it actually resembles activity while awake. Like the name suggests, the REM phase can be identified by rapid movement of the eyes. Dreams you have can last from seconds, up to 20 minutes. They generally seem longer, but are not. Dreams can also range from lots of different 'genres' like they can be; happy, sad, terrifying, magical and sexual. Fascinating.


'Incorporation of Reality' is a phenomenon in which during sleep your brain detects many stimuli and incorporates them into your dreams, imagine you are asleep and your phone rings - you may hear this ringing in your dream. Its even better though, you can train your mind to react to certain things differently, you could train it to wake up to a fire alarm or even a child's cry.


Another thing your body does during dreams is basically freeze, this is because while in REM your brain, the release of the neurotransmitters and histamine (there's more) is suppressed. As a result your motor neurones can not and are not stimulated, this is known as REM Atonia. This prevents you from making dangerous movements in your sleeps, which could harm you.


Ever awoke abruptly, thinking you are falling and you twitch? Yes? This is called a 'Hypnic Jerk' - when you are falling asleep, your muscles relax. Your brain could misinterpret these signals, thinking you are falling. So your brain sends signals to your arms and legs, telling them to jerk (to try to get you upright). However when you think you are falling, you generally aren't - you feel this as it is a hallucination that accompanies a hypnic jerk.


'Lucid dreaming', possibly the weirdest part of dreams. A lucid dream is a dream in which you know you are dreaming, you are physically aware you are. You can control dreams from the inside. Lucid dreams are generally much more vivid and realistic than usual dreams. Lucid dreaming is hard to master, but can be very beneficial if mastered; they can cure nightmares etc. But they can have a bad side. Sleep Paralysis. You may awake in REM Atonia, your body will feel paralysed - you will also suffer a hypnagogic hallucination, you will visualise and hear things which aren't actually there, or happening.


To conclude, dreams. What causes dreams? Why do we dream? Do they serve a purpose? To be honest no one really knows at this current moment in time. We do not understand how the brain works, it is the most complicated thing in which we know of. Would you ever lucid dream? It is easy to learn, but hard to master.


Thanks for reading, Ben.

Atoms, Subatomic Particles and Relativity.

"By recognising that the chemical atom is composed of single separable electric quanta, humanity has taken a great step forward in the investigation of the natural world." - Johannes Stark

The title of this post is not about Einstein's relativity, but things which are relative.

The atom; an amazing discovery.

Protons are positive. Neutrons are neutral. Electrons are negative. This is a normal atom.


Anti-protons are negative. Anti-neutrons are still electrically neutral. Positrons are positive. The is an anti-atom.


Inside protons and neutrons are quarks, inside a proton two ups and a down, in a neutron two downs and an up quark. Whereas inside anti-protons and neutrons are anti-quarks, inside an anti-proton is two down and an up quarks, and in a anti-neutron is two ups and a down. An up quark is equal to 2/3, and a down quark is equal to -1/3 so in a neutron it is equal to 0, and in a proton equal to 1. In an anti proton. An antiup (Anti-up quark) has a charge of -2/3 and a antidown has a charge of 1/3. So an anti-nuetron is equal to 0, and an anti-proton is equal to -1.

An anti-atom is the opposite to an atom, we generally call it anti-matter though. Yes, it exists. We've captured anti-hydrogen and kept it for about 16 minutes. Since hydrogen is made up of a proton and electron. An anti-hydrogen is made up of an anti-proton and a positron. As shown in the diagram to the right.


Anti-hydrogen is anti-matter. But how do we know anti-matter, is actually anti? We could be anti-matter and what we say is anti-matter could fine well be matter. Our 'matter' dominant universe is only classed as normal matter as it is what we are used to, anti-matter is the opposite of our matter, so we call it anti-matter.


Will we ever know the true matter?


Probably not. Is there a true matter?


After the Big Bang, and the cool down. There was a war between matter and anti-matter. Matter won, and is now dominant. In another universe, do you think it could be anti-matter dominant? Instead of our matter dominant universe. Even in our universe, could there be anti-planets? A whole planet made up of anti-matter.


This is crazy stuff.


If an atom collided with an anti-atom they would annihilate, creating a lot of energy. So imagine if a planet collided with an anti-planet? A cataclysmic explosion would unfold.


To conclude, do you think we reside in a matter dominant universe? Or an anti-universe? Do you think that in our universe, we could have anti-plantets? Solar systems, or even galaxies? Atoms are amazing things, and so is physics.


Thanks for reading, Ben.

The Fountain of Youth!

"A dying man needs to die, as a sleepy man needs to sleep, and there comes a time when it is wrong, as well as useless, to resist."

Stewart Alsop

Could there be a 'cure' for ageing?

Can we live for ever? And more importantly, would we want to?

In the near future people will be living even longer than people today, a thought which is both a good thing and a bad thing - we will be able to live longer and achieve more, however what happens to our home planet, Earth, with all these people.
Recently it was predicted that the seven billionth child was born in the world, an event that I have lived through.
A 2000 study conducted by the United Nations predicted that the Earth's population was growing at 1.14% - a staggering amount considering the size of the Earth's population. As technology, health care and understanding of the human body advances every year I can only imagine a future where human beings will live to ages far beyond ours.

The race for the fountain of youth is any ones game.

We've always perceived the fountain of youth as a physical spring that will grant the person that bathes in it's miraculous waters eternal life, however nowadays the 'sci-fi' drug that can keep us alive forever may be the new view of the fountain of youth.

There are all sorts of theories and 'hints' given to us by the centenarians of our world ranging from the plausible such as drink a glass of milk every day, drink a glass of green tea every day, follow a healthy diet etc. or the plain bizarre - drink a glass of whiskey every day (somehow I don't think this will work ...).

A simple drug to help us live longer?

But what could be the true path to this 'gift of the gods', the true path to eternal age?

One such drug, called Lenalidomide claim to boost age through the vast improvement of the immune system which can battle a variety of problems occurring around old age. Chemicals involved in the immune system called cytokines may play a part in the race for eternal youth; when levels stay fairly constant in the body over years it can be predicted that you will age healthily however if levels decrease the immune system could falter which 'fountain of youth' drugs could help.

As the fountain of youth and methods of eternal youth are shown to us though many films it seems nice for us to wonder what the world would be like if we could escape the grasp of death, even for a little while. However while no solid evidence of an 'eternal youth drug' exists at present wondering is all we can do.

Thanks for reading, Chris.

The Scale of Large.

You may have noticed a different blogger, Chris - he will be posting on here from now on. And in this blog I will be 'spicing' things up a bit, using pictures etc.

From small to large, two opposites yet, they can be very similar. This is because they are relative. They are different when compared to different things.

Now to start off, think of something normal. You or me for example. We are our starting point. Do you class us as big or small? Try and think of it. What do you think? 

Well we are both, a paradox in itself really. We are both huge and microscopic. Compared to a quark, or an electron we are gigantic, but to the Sun? Tiny.

Think of a big building, around about 60 stories. Thats is a about me or you lying in a row about 100 times (taking your about 6ft). Now, lie your building down on its side 10 times, we have quite a long distance now, around about a mile. This bridge (The Golden Gate Bridge) Is around a mile long. Now, lie down your bridge 10 times in a row, we have quite a large city now, something along the lines of San Francisco maybe?

Think about 100 San Francisco's and we have a huge part of America. If you times this amount by 10, we may have something around about the diameter of Earth. 

Earth is something we can relate too, but we cannot comprehend to the extreme vastness of it. Sticking to the scale of multiplying by 10 or 100, if we multiply Earth by around about 10, we have around the diameter of Jupiter (by diameter I mean across the 'equator')! Now at this point we definitely cannot comprehend the size of it, but back to Earth. Multiply Earth by 100! (109 to be exact) We get the diameter of the Sun, a huge object we see everyday, but cannot imagine how uncontrollably large it is. 

Now moving on, into the very very big things. The diameter of the Sun is about 1,391,000 kilometres! Whereas the Earths diameter is 12,756 kilometres! Sticking to the scale again, if you multiply the Sun's diameter by about 100 - we get the distance from the Earth to the Sun! This unimaginably vast! 

From on star to another, to get from our Sun to the nearest star; in the Alpha Centauri system, it is called Proxima Centauri. If you get the distance from the Earth to the Sun, and multiply it by around about 200,000 times. You will arrive at Proxima Centauri, this is around 4 light years.

Imagine how fast light is, now imagine light travelling in a straight line for a year, far right? Now imagine it for 4 years. An unbelievable distance.

From 4 light years to 100,000. Imagine the distance from our Sun to Proxima Centauri, 25,000 times. This is the diameter of the Milky Way. 100,000 light years. It take light 100,000 years to travel this far. This is huge. And to think, most of our Galaxy is free space.

Now to the size of the observable Universe. The size of the the observable Universe is...

28 BILLIONS PARSECS!

You wont know what a parsec is, so ill go back to light years - this is around about 93 billion lightyears! Way to big to comprehend, for all we know our Universe may even be infinite although I believe it is finite. To get this number you would have to multiply the size of the Milky way not by 1000, but by 1000 then 1000 again! 1,000,000 times! (When we round the Universes diameter up to 100 billion light years.)

To conclude, are we big? Are we small? Is anything big in the world we live in? Or to be honest, is anything even small? The scale of everything is not as we think it is, it is much vaster. Think about it.

Thanks for reading, Ben.