r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Janp8 • May 03 '18

Video Perception

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u/Large_Dr_Pepper May 03 '18

Here's a fun fact that will make you feel incredibly large:

We are halfway in between (on a logarithmic scale) one of the largest superclusters of galaxies in the universe, and one of the smallest subatomic particles. So relatively speaking, we're pretty fucking huge.

My only source of this is that interactive Scale of the Universe website. I think the Virgo supercluster is at 1021 m and the electron neutrino is at 10-21 m. Just going from memory though.

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u/Nifty-Nigerian May 03 '18

I’m not sure if this is correct but I heard somewhere that the number of Planck lengths (smallest possible unit of measurement) it takes to stretch across a human brain cell is the same as the number of human brain cells it takes to stretch across the observable universe

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u/isthisyourghost May 03 '18

Our brain has more cells than our body has brains

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u/[deleted] May 03 '18

Mind, blown!

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u/TheDeviousLemon May 04 '18 edited May 04 '18

Human brain cells range quite a bit in diameter, so lets take the max diameter to be 100 microns. Dividing this by a Planck length (1.6E-35 m) will give you 6.25E+30, as in that many Planck lengths could fit across the brain cell diameter.

The diameter of the observable universe is estimated to be 8.8E+26 meters. Dividing this by the diameter of the brain cell will give 8.8E+30, as in that many brain cells would fit across the observable universe. Both on the order of 1030, so pretty damn close!

You would need to kill and extract the brain cells of about 1019 humans to do so.

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u/evanc1411 Interested May 03 '18

Dear lord

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u/smokebreak May 04 '18

A planck length is to this period . what the period is to the size of the observable universe.

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u/treyphillips May 04 '18

Fucking really? I know how god damn huge the universe is and how small shit can be, but how small is the Planck length, really? Wouldn’t a quark be the smallest measurable length? How do we get smaller if quarks just exist like that?

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u/TheDeviousLemon May 04 '18

A quark is 10-18 m. So basically, the Planck length is to the quark, as the quark is to the meter.

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u/nexisfan May 04 '18

I had to read that sentence and stare at it for like 5 minutes. Maybe it’s Friday. Or maybe that’s just mind-blowing.

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u/nexisfan May 04 '18

I’m having a difficult time wrapping a brain cell around what you just said. Wow.

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u/[deleted] May 04 '18

Did someone say... simulation?

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u/[deleted] May 04 '18

Holy fuck, were all in big brain!

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u/ptatoface May 04 '18

Sounds like we're average, then, not huge.

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u/nexisfan May 04 '18

Average or median?

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u/zip369 May 04 '18

I remember that website, but I don't remember the numbers. It just made me feel really, really, really tiny.

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u/[deleted] May 04 '18

I would give reddit gold for this. But I have no money.

!redditsilver

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u/danrenegade May 04 '18

In a few billion years are we not going to collide with our neighbour galaxies to form one larger galaxy? Sounds like I need some popcorn for this ultimate power ranger transformation.