It's one of my favorite works of art of all time. Before watching it I didn't have a very good sense of what physicists and astronomers believe will happen in the future of the universe. There's so much knowledge contained in it that every time I watch it I learn or remember something new.
I love it because it gives emotion to these events. The collision of two black holes is narrated with background music that makes it feel like a meeting of two souls. The death of black holes and the resulting explosions are like fireworks. The music that our Sun dies to gives space to mourn the loss. Every time something ends, something unimaginable begins, its events spaced too far apart for us humans to really understand or sync up with.
What really stands out to me is how close we are to the birth of the universe compared to its end. I'd always thought 13.8 billion years was an extremely long time, so we must be somewhere in the middle of the universe's life. But it's not so. We're only about 1/1000 of the way through the period when stars are alive, and by the time black holes began to evaporate and die, well, that will be millions of trillions of trillions of trillions of trillions of trillions of years from now. According to the video, life as we know it is only possibly for an insanely tiny fraction of the lifespan of the universe.
The events shown in the video are so strange, yet emotionalized, that it's influenced my view of life. I'd heard about things like Hawking radiation before but had never understood them before. Watching this, I get a glimpse into the far future.
There are certain truths like rotation. Rotation seems to be a constant throughout time. On tiny as well as huge scales of time and space. I don't think it's a coincidence that so many religious ceremonies involve spinning. It's a way that we as humans can connect to the cosmos, to the nature of our reality.
It's all so poignant, and it's funny how I have trouble connecting with other people in daily life, but then I can feel connected to all of these things I'll never see in person.
There's so much we still don't know. That's another thing I like, is that we don't understand dark energy, which makes up most of the energy in the universe. We don't know where it comes from or what it will do in the future. And nothing is for certain, anyway.
I want to understand and feel these things, and to learn more about them, because I feel lucky to be alive for a brief instant while life is possible, and to wonder about why we're alive and what the future may bring.
Reply With Quote