The Universe in Numbers: 10 Mindboggling Ones

Yes, clicking a button and getting a package on your doorstep is surprising. But the universe—or multiverse or whatever—is mindboggling. Even a peripheral glance at the universe in numbers will make your brain hurt. Here are 10 of those, snatched mostly from Bill Bryson’s classic A Short History of Nearly Everything.

 

13,700,000,000 years

The approximate age of the universe. Earth showed up around 4,500,000,000 years ago, and anatomically modern humans made an appearance maybe 200,000 years ago, meaning our unique atomic arrangement has been present for 0.004% of Earth’s existence.

 

7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

That’s 7 octillion, the approximate number of atoms in a 70-kg adult male human. (In recent years, I’ve unfortunately added a few atoms.) Of these, 99% are hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen.

 

500,000,000,000

A guess as to the number of protons—the key defining feature of those atoms—in the dot of this i.

 

Infinitesimally small

As in way smaller than a proton. That’s the size of the singularity that contained everything in the universe prior to the Big Bang.

 

665,000 hours

The average life expectancy of an American. In other words, get off the couch and go do something!

 

99.99%

Of the billions of species that have existed since the beginning of time, this is the proportion that is no longer around.

 

100,000,000,000

A stab at the number of stars (including the sun) in the Milky Way. This number is also a stab at the number of galaxies (including the Milky Way) in the universe. You get the point.

 

Less than one in a billion trillion trillion

The chance of being on or near a planet if randomly inserted into the universe.

 

4.3 light years

The distance from Earth to Proxima Centauri, the nearest star that isn’t the sun. That’s 25,000,000,000,000 miles, or 100,000,000 times farther than a trip to our moon, located a mere 250,000 miles away.

 

93,000,000 miles

The distance between Earth and the sun—also known as pretty manageable.

 

A look at the universe in numbers is somewhere between staggering, inspiring, depressing, and humbling. But no matter your take, it’s time to put those atoms to use.

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6 Responses

  1. Where does religion stand in this creation, arrangement snd system?
    Not anywhere in the Universe?
    Only in the mind?
    Is mind bigger than the Universe?
    .

    1. Religion stands wherever you would like it to stand. That’s been the case for millennia.

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