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Unread 09-08-2002, 03:08
DanL DanL is offline
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I dunno about that number.... the universe is A LOT larger than I thought. Earlier this summer, I took this fun 3-week course in Astronomy and astro-physics (my TA was an astronomy graduate student... some of the theories that he went into... string theory, the universe-consists-of-22-dimensions thing, details of nuclear fusion, black matter, neutrinos... tons of fun, but far beyond my understanding). Needless to say, I learned that compared to the universe, our entire planet is a miliscule speck of insignificance. The point is, I have no idea how scientists can specify the number of electrons in the universe. For an introduction to our insignificance, take this picture from the first page of my textbook: begining in the upper-left, every picture is an approximately 10x magnification of the previous picture.

Pictures 7-10 show you just how completely insignificant we are compared to the milky way (and thats our entire solar system in picture 7, not just earth!!!). Then the last two show you that the entire milky way galaxy is just part of billions of superglusters of galaxies just like it.

Point is, universe's size is beyond comprehension... no idea how you can possibly create "a number of electrons" in it.

btw, sorry for the uber-high size of the pic... had to take splice two pics together to show all of the detail.
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Dan L
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