Logarithmic map of the universe:
http://www.astro.princeton.edu/universe/
TL;DR:
Here is today
41–50 of 116 posts
Re: Here is today
#42What was before the universe?
One unicorn is enough.
Re: Here is today
#43I've always wanted to do something like that! It's brilliant. You should add "here is your grand-grand mother, what's her name?" and "here will be your potential grand grand son, do you think they'll remember your name?"
Same here. These sort of time scales should really make us humble and question the meaning of "making a dent in the universe" or taking our legacies too seriously.
Re: Here is today
#44Like others, I liked the loop-back to today. I think it would be nice to include decade before century. Also, more or less at/after "period" I started to get a little bored (see the discussion in these comments about losing perspective) UNTIL you added the second dimension about life itself and then it got interesting again because we think of dinosaurs and such to be so, so, so long ago and yet this animation shows that in the grand scheme of things, it's as if it had been last week.
Re: Here is today
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Carbon Dating
Carbon dating is actually only effective up to about 50,000 years, so its really only ideal for tracking human history after we started migrating out of Africa. This is because the unstable carbon-14 isotope only has a half-life of about 5700 years. There are many other forms of radiometric dating, though. Uranium-lead dating has proven relatively accurate for periods of time between 1 million to 4.5 billion years ag…
I'm curious how it could prove accurate for that time frame? How could something like that be verified or proven?
Re: Here is today
#46I've always wanted to do something like that! It's brilliant. You should add "here is your grand-grand mother, what's her name?" and "here will be your potential grand grand son, do you think they'll remember your name?"
Same here. These sort of time scales should really make us humble and question the meaning of "making a dent in the universe" or taking our legacies too seriously.
"Dent" is not something large, and doesn't have to be a conscious memory. A tree you plant won't remember you.
Re: Here is today
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Carbon dating is actually only effective up to about 50,000 years, so its really only ideal for tracking human history after we started migrating out of Africa. This is because the unstable carbon-14 isotope only has a half-life of about 5700 years. There are many other forms of radiometric dating, though. Uranium-lead dating has proven relatively accurate for periods of time between 1 million to 4.5 billion years ag…
I'm curious how it could prove accurate for that time frame? How could something like that be verified or proven?
Due to the way radiometric dating works, you don't need to actually verify in the way that you are using the word. However, there are at least two ways to verify the date:
1) Verify the half-life value. Radiometric dating works on the same principle: look at the ratio of pre-substance to fissioned substance. If you have a good half-life value, you can determine the age of the specimen using those values.
2) Use two different methods for getting the same age. If you use multiple, independent methods of determining the age of something, and they all come out the same, you have greatly lessened the probability that you're wrong or missed something.
Of course there are ways that these can be strengthened even more using practices like double blinding the measurements.
Re: Here is today
#48It is cool made
Re: Here is today
#49Simply brilliant. Very innovative.
Re: Here is today
#50How do you learn to make these things?
That was exactly my first reaction. How in the world are so many people doing so many awesome things! Where do I start?