Astrophysical Proof You are Special

Let’s start off with how small you (and all of us) really are.  You are one of 7 billion people alive.  You are one of 108 billion to have ever lived on your planet.  Your planet could fit 1.3 million times inside your nearest star (you call it the Sun).  Your nearest star is 1/100^th the size of the largest stars in your galaxy.  Your galaxy contains 100 billion stars.  Your observable universe contains over 100 billion galaxies.  The overall universe is at least 250 times larger than your observable universe.  You are so very small.  But, take comfort in Neil’s words regarding such minuscule self-reflection: “I feel alive and spirited and connected.  I also feel large, knowing that the goings-on within the three-pound human brain are what enabled us to figure out our place in the universe.”  Though you may be physically small, there is a lot of bigness in that noggin of yours.

Alright, that’s a bit weird but it’s also kinda, sorta, literally true.  “There are more molecules of water in an eight-ounce cup of the stuff than there are cups of water in all the world’s oceans.  Every cup that passes through a single person and eventually rejoins the world’s water supply holds enough molecules to mix 1,500 of them into every other cup of water in the world.”  That means that without a doubt you have consumed the same molecules of water that historical figures such as Jesus, Hitler, Martin Luther King Jr., and even Weird Al Yankovic have consumed.  By the way, the same goes for the air you’re breathing.

Joni Mitchell prolifically said it at Woodstock: we are made of stardust.  Since then, however, we’ve discovered that it is truer than even she knew.  The atoms that made every one of us (yes, even you) are the same atoms that make up everything in the universe such as stars.  And where did those atoms come from?  Other stars!  This mind-blowing fact instills the truth that there is an interconnectedness between not just all people of our world, but of all things in existence, all energy.  You are stardust.

Upon conclusion of the book, Tyson speaks of the privilege that few people have to even take the time to ponder the cosmos when he states: “But who gets to think that way?  Who gets to celebrate this cosmic view of life?  Not the migrant farmworker.  Not the sweatshop worker.  Certainly not the homeless person rummaging through the trash for food.  You need the luxury of time not spent on mere survival.  You need to live in a nation whose government values the search to understand humanity’s place in the universe.”  774 million people around the world can’t read this sentence (even when translated in any other language).  Over 3 billion people in the world live on under $2.50/day, hardly having extra cash to buy a book on Amazon.  He then says, “imagine a world in which everyone, but especially people with power and influence, holds an expanded view of our place in the cosmos […] our problems would shrink – or never arise at all”.  After reading all this, recognize that you are a person with power and influence compared to so many others in this world: do good.

In his #1 New York Times Bestseller Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, Neil DeGrasse Tyson gives a distilled overview of the history of the universe up until now; just a small task.  While the book is dense in content surrounding mathematics, quantum mechanics, and overall cosmology (note, that is vastly different than “cosmetology”) it is his ultimate deductions of what it all means about us as a species and citizens of the Milky Way, and far beyond, that is the most compelling.  Here are a few meme-worthy notes about what he had to say.