I like the other one where you can zoom in/out to planck level or to the unobserved universe
If the moon were only 1 pixel: A tediously accurate solar system model (2014)
111–120 of 273 posts
Re: If the moon were only 1 pixel: A tediously accurate solar system model (2014)
#112I’ve been thinking about how to teach the size and proportions of the solar system to my kids, I’ve bought a couple of packs of blank RFID cards on which I intend to paint the planets over a starred background. And then walk with my kids the meters necessary to cover the distances before displaying them. What I don’t know is if there is a clever way to use the RFID tech, this website kinda offers an idea.
space engine is neat
Re: If the moon were only 1 pixel: A tediously accurate solar system model (2014)
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not out of reach if you get very close to light speed. Time would advance very slowly for you, so counterintuitively it is possible to travel 5000ly in your life time. Although for everyone else at least 5000 years will pass, so better say goodbye to family and friend. Hm, not sure if that is really less depressing... Also light isn't slow. A photon instantly travels to the end of time and yet it still takes a few mi…
That doesn’t make sense - if you were traveling at the speed of light, it would take you 5000 years to travel 5000ly - longer if you were just ‘very close’ to C. Time wouldn’t advance slowly for you, it wouldn’t advance perceptively different at all - you’d still live every second of those 5000 years.
I dont think you are right. Light for example doesnt perceive time at all. From the photons point of view it never aged even a microsecond while it traveled lightyears. Time is relative too so from our POV 1 year passed when a photon traveled 1 ly, but for the photon no time passed.
Re: If the moon were only 1 pixel: A tediously accurate solar system model (2014)
#114Still an extraordinary experience after all these years and possibly the best use of horizontal scrolling I’ve seen. Lots of previous discussions and posts on HN: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=if+moon+only+1+pixel
It's very very good! I thought this one hit hard though, I assume inspired by the moon = 1-pixel viz. https://hmijail.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/
On the same note: https://xkcd.com/980/ (from 2011 when Bezos "only" had $18b)
Re: If the moon were only 1 pixel: A tediously accurate solar system model (2014)
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
Extremely low. Space is very empty.
But it's also very big , and GP doesn't even specify how far of a trip they're asking about nor how small a meteorite. "Extremely" and "very" don't cut it here. This is beyond the human ability to guess. You'd actually do at least some back-of-the-napkin math to give a real answer, and with a far enough trip, the answer may well become "Almost 100%".
And at a high enough speed, the impacts from the ~1 hydrogen atom per cm^3 in interstellar space become a major problem.
Re: If the moon were only 1 pixel: A tediously accurate solar system model (2014)
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not out of reach if you get very close to light speed. Time would advance very slowly for you, so counterintuitively it is possible to travel 5000ly in your life time. Although for everyone else at least 5000 years will pass, so better say goodbye to family and friend. Hm, not sure if that is really less depressing... Also light isn't slow. A photon instantly travels to the end of time and yet it still takes a few mi…
That doesn’t make sense - if you were traveling at the speed of light, it would take you 5000 years to travel 5000ly - longer if you were just ‘very close’ to C. Time wouldn’t advance slowly for you, it wouldn’t advance perceptively different at all - you’d still live every second of those 5000 years.
Read up on time dilation and special relativity. Time absolutely does pass slower for you as you accelerate.
Re: If the moon were only 1 pixel: A tediously accurate solar system model (2014)
#117Make sure you press the "c" button in the bottom right. Light is incredibly slow, and everything seems out of reach. I think we'll have a holodeck before we reach another star. And maybe that'll be enough.
Is light slow? Or is the human perception of time just scaled down as a result of our rapid metabolism and infinitesimality? People historically mistake plants for being inanimate things with no reactivity, that they are far more simple and stupid than they truly are. Outside of a few exotic examples, plants simply operate on a wider timescale that's basically imperceptible without careful and particular observation. It becomes much more apparent how alive plants are when we observe them in a time-lapse. Now realize that plants are still relatively short-lived. The absolute oldest ones only go back to the early neolithic, that's only 14000 years or so. 1000 years is a long time for humans, but probably not for the trees where a single one can live 10x that.
From the hypothetical perspective of a star, with a lifespan measured in billions upon billions of years, the entire ecoscape of the world changes in a blink. From the sun's perspective, MENA was green just a very short while ago. Hell, Pangea wasn't that long ago. At this timescale, continental drift would be as apparent as the movement of boats are to humans. Anything that's working at the cosmic scale where the seemingly low speed of light sounds exhausting is most definitely working at this stellar perspective at the minimum. 14000 years of travel might as well be the equivalent of a 10 minute commute to the store.
Philosophically speaking, of course.
Re: If the moon were only 1 pixel: A tediously accurate solar system model (2014)
#118Make sure you press the "c" button in the bottom right. Light is incredibly slow, and everything seems out of reach. I think we'll have a holodeck before we reach another star. And maybe that'll be enough.
Is light slow? Or is the human perception of time just scaled down as a result of our rapid metabolism and infinitesimality? People historically mistake plants for being inanimate things with no reactivity, that they are far more simple and stupid than they truly are. Outside of a few exotic examples, plants simply operate on a wider timescale that's basically imperceptible without careful and particular observation.…
I always think of those motor proteins moving along slowly inside our bodies, and wonder if maybe we are just the motor proteins of the cosmic scale.
Re: If the moon were only 1 pixel: A tediously accurate solar system model (2014)
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Light is incredibly slow, and everything seems out of reach. Yes, agreed. I find it a little depressing. An unimaginably huge universe, tantalisingly there, but completely out of reach.
Not out of reach if you get very close to light speed. Time would advance very slowly for you, so counterintuitively it is possible to travel 5000ly in your life time. Although for everyone else at least 5000 years will pass, so better say goodbye to family and friend. Hm, not sure if that is really less depressing... Also light isn't slow. A photon instantly travels to the end of time and yet it still takes a few mi…
It depends on acceleration though. If acceleration and deceleration take long enough, it could take an entire generation to get up to a fast enough speed that relativistic effects make any difference, and another generation to slow down enough to interact with anything you might see.
Plus if you're traveling at near light speed, running into any matter at all would be pretty devastating for whatever craft you're in.
Edit: someone further down claimed that the math says that accelerating at 1G would get you to 0.1c in a month, so that's actually not that bad all in all. I still maintain that hitting any matter at those speeds might be unpleasant.
Re: If the moon were only 1 pixel: A tediously accurate solar system model (2014)
#120Make sure you press the "c" button in the bottom right. Light is incredibly slow, and everything seems out of reach. I think we'll have a holodeck before we reach another star. And maybe that'll be enough.
Is light slow? Or is the human perception of time just scaled down as a result of our rapid metabolism and infinitesimality? People historically mistake plants for being inanimate things with no reactivity, that they are far more simple and stupid than they truly are. Outside of a few exotic examples, plants simply operate on a wider timescale that's basically imperceptible without careful and particular observation.…
Thanks for this.
In addition to the insight, it reminded me to water a plant at a desk I no longer use. The plant's been with me through quite a bit and I have been neglecting it recently as I no longer see it regularly.