What’s the most astounding thing about the Universe to you?

[Beggar for the Spirit]

This question was asked in a recent interview with 1 of the world's legendary scientists and mathematicians, Freeman Dyson.  The interview covered a variety of topics, but the answer that Dyson gives to this final question is very interesting!

What do you think about Dyson's answer?

 

What’s the most astounding thing about the universe to you?

Dyson:

"Almost everything about the universe is astounding. I don’t know how you would measure astounding-ness... I think the most amazing thing is how gifted we are — as you were saying at the beginning, that we are only monkeys who came down from the trees just recently.

We have these amazing gifts of music and mathematics and painting and Olympic running. I mean, we’re the animal that is best of all the animals at long-distance running.  Why? It is quite amazing. Superfluous gifts you don’t really need to survive.

 

The world is just — it's wonderful when you look at all the detail — it’s just amazing. Nothing is boring if you look at it carefully.

I think that’s what it would say:  It’s us that's really amazing. As far as I can see, our concentration of different abilities in one species — there’s nothing I can see that in this Darwinian evolution that could’ve done that. So it seems to be a miracle of some sort."

 

 

Here is the link to the entire interview:

http://uk.businessinsider.com/freeman-dyson-interview-2016-9

Edited September 10, 2016 by Beggar for the Spirit

[Friends just call me Ross]

I found this statement of Tyson's very interesting:

The brain is just designed for comparing images and some patterns - patterns in space and patterns in time - which we do amazingly well. Computers can do it, too, but not in anything like the same kind of flexibility.

 

[Friends just call me Ross]

Dyson knows the human brain was designed.  I wonder if he ever thinks about its 'Designer'? 

[Stormswift]

That Jehovah has created theses clusters of galaxies that fills a galactic vineyard and beyond with perfectly designed and positioned gems with a purpose that most if not all of us here today will possibly get to know, understand and experience. 

[hatcheckgirl]

I just like stars. They *twinkle*.

[On the huh]

Its simply AWESOME!!

But in the great vastness of the Universe is this little green and blue gem of a planet that is unlike anything else in it, and we call it Home.

[Bob]

What I find most astounding is the sheer size. The Milky Way is 100,000 light-years across.  If we started traversing from one end to the next when Adam was created, we would not have even covered ten percent of the distance yet, traveling at the speed of light!

 

And you think that's huge? There is a galaxy a sheer 6 million light-years across! We cannot begin to comprehend that size!

Edited September 10, 2016 by Bob

[Alexa]

To all, the most astounding thing about the universe for me are a lot.

• One of it is that galaxy are born from the death of a star. When the death of star begins it explodes and it scattered some pieces making a process from the clouds there also the galaxy. That's also the reason why many believe the stars in the sky at night back then is not that full of stars but because over the years they became many.  
• Second is not only planet orbits sun or stars, the stars do move as the galaxy orbits nearer to another galaxy. That's why scientists believe our milky way galaxy is just the combination of other galaxy because of its enormous size. 
• Our earth is just perfect even though scientist find some planets like ours, they can't perfectly find one. The reason behind this is that we are perfectly orbiting around the sun, what they call in "goldilocks zone". If the goldilocks zone is like oval, people living ones die because they are too close to the sun and to far from the sun. In ours, we are perfectly kept as we experience nice seasons.  
• Another one is the nice pictures taken from our galaxy. The pictures we people normally see in the universe are not the clear view the astronauts see outside our planet. The hubble scope telescopes do take pictures from the temperature they detect. As the temperature of man, we just see red when the said telescope were used to us. But, speaking of the pictures we might already see from NASA, they are all the temperature of our universe which is amazing. 
• I also learn that moon can do have rivers depending to their distance between the sun.  
• I like also the idea of "black hole" it is the center of the universe. No one ever been known to show evidences what it is inside the black hole, us humans beyond our knowledge and research. The reason why because when the "black hole" passes to another thing in the universe it's infinite rules passes some enormous planets' with their gravity perish and the "black hole" believed to be getting bigger as the process continues. Because of also this "black hole" the sizes of the galaxy were spiral and somewhat circular because of the center of it is the "black hole". It came from the dead star that exploded. 

 

[Miss Bea]

I don't even think we know the most outstanding thing about the universe. Yet. In the mean time, I just love looking into the night sky. 

[Thesauron]

The universe is weird and funny and shows signs of divine wisdom wherever you look. We imagine the Milky Way as a disc, but if we were to look at it from the outside, it wouldn't represent the way it really looks in that instance since it takes such a long time for the light from each corner to reach your eyes, several million years, as stated above, so the middle would be younger. Also, it moves and changes, so if it would look like a disc, that perception would be a lie.

[shali]

I think the most outstanding thing I've ever heard about the universe is that it tastes likes raspberries (no kidding, I heard this on NPR science Friday!) I never even considered that the universe would have a "taste" before.

[tekmantwo]

3 hours ago, shali said:

I think the most outstanding thing I've ever heard about the universe is that it tastes likes raspberries (no kidding, I heard this on NPR science Friday!) I never even considered that the universe would have a "taste" before.

Well, as long as you have a towel to clean up with,  no prob...

[New World Explorer]

What if there is a multi-universe ? Billions of them ? Of course with our limited technology we wouldn't see them ...

Can't wait to live forever and keep discovering Jehovah's amazing creations ..

 

[Omoyeme]

20 hours ago, hatcheckgirl said:

I just like stars. They *twinkle*.

I echo that also Lucy! It's one of my favorite pasttimes but unfortunately, I have to travel to the African continent to see big bright twinkling stars and maybe one or two of them blazing across the perpetual night sky.  (Too much artificial lights and pollution can cloud the sky at night if one wants to star gaze in my locality.)  I remember humming a well known kingdom song when, many years ago,  I flew from Johannesburg to Nairobi as I looked out my window seat to be blown away by the setting sun against the awe-inspiring backdrop of an orange-colored sky! 

 

The heavens declare the glory of Jehovah

The works of his own hands in skies above we see

And each new day brings to him rightful praise

The starlit night proclaims his might

And his true majesty.

[jane loves pandas]

http://scaleofuniverse.com/

i found this comparison amazing ... have a look

(really gives us a small scale as to how magnificent Jehovah has made everything - even what we had no idea was there)

 

Edited September 13, 2016 by jane loves pandas
addition

[JSmith]

For a recent talk I found this calculation that if all the energy the sun emitted for just ONE SECOND could be harnessed and stored, it would care for all the energy needs of the U.S. for 9 BILLION YEARS.

 

And its been doing this for 4+ billion years. 

 

And its just 1 in trillions of stars in our galaxy.

 

And there are trillions of galaxies.

 

And Jehovah used just a fraction of his power to create them.  

 

Truly Jehovah has vast dynamic energy and awe-inspiring power.

[tekmantwo]

1 hour ago, JSmith said:

For a recent talk I found this calculation that if all the energy the sun emitted for just ONE SECOND could be harnessed and stored, it would care for all the energy needs of the U.S. for 9 BILLION YEARS.

 

And its been doing this for 4+ billion years. 

 

And its just 1 in trillions of stars in our galaxy.

 

And there are trillions of galaxies.

 

And Jehovah used just a fraction of his power to create them.  

 

Truly Jehovah has vast dynamic energy and awe-inspiring power.

I like the illustration in our publication that says if a piece of the Sun the size of a pea was on the Earth, it would be so hot you couldn't get within 90 miles of it...

As we live a little over 90miles West of Reno Nevada it's easy to visualize,  hard to grasp...

 

I didn't look at the link above,  that jane loves pandas posted but I have seen universe scales before. 

To think of our Sun, little Sol, as being so very powerful and immense,  and then seeing that it's just a little guy among giants, and then thinking Jehovah used just a little bit of His dynamic energy to create them all, it is impossible for the human mind to grasp the enormity of it all

 

Mind, blown--

[Alexa]

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/iotd.html

[carlos]

Another amazing thing about the universe is that we can understand it with the help of maths.

 

I mean, if we were just a product of chance there's no reason why the universe would have to be understandable for us. Animals, such as monkeys who haven't come down the tree yet, don't understand the universe. They only react to what they perceive through their senses and don't question anything.

 

Yet we understand that there are laws behind every process in the universe (even if we haven't discovered all of them yet) and those laws make sense to us and can be described by mathematical formulas. It seems that the same intelligence who set those laws endowed us with a mind designed specifically to understand them.

[Tortuga]

On Friday, September 09, 2016 at 11:34 PM, Beggar for the Spirit said:

What’s the most astounding thing about the universe to you?

That I'm allowed to be in it...

[Torah]

What's astounding to me is the absolute vastness of it! Variety of life on earth is superabundant, so then add to that the complexity of the heavens and the actual earth itself... the sheer magnitude of these things just boggle my tiny mind... And yet we are told... These are just the fringes of His ways.... Wow

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

[*Jack*]

The most astounding thing to me is the human brain. It amazes me how once we reach perfection we will be able to store an unlimited amount of knowledge and memories without the brain ever having to increase in size beyond our skull capacity. For example, if we want more storage on our phones or digital cameras, we add a memory card. When that card gets filled up, we get another one. Not so with the brain. It can store an unlimited amount of knowledge.

[ChrisC]

I think Jehovah's generosity is striking to me. The colours, the humour in nature, the tingle down my spine and the water in my eyes when I look at the stars ...

Also the thought that each star is really an unimaginably huge ball of energy. I'm pretty sure Jehovah 'has our back.'

 

[Thesauron]

I love how stars are billions of miles apart and we're like "that's a soup ladle".