Thursday, October 4, 2007

The Universe.

I once read that a famous rich man makes thousands of dollars every second, even while he's asleep.
I may not be able to match that, however, even in my sleep, I travel at 18.55 miles per second around the Sun (67,000 miles per hour), and 135 miles per second around the center of the Milky Way Galaxy.
Then, there is the earth's rotation: At the equator, 25,000 miles per day, or, 1,042 miles per hour.
It takes the Sun 225 million years to complete a revolution (orbit) around the center of the Galaxy. Since the Sun is 'only' 4.6 billion years old, it has made the trip around the Galaxy only 20.5 times.
If we take into account the generally accepted age of mankind in its current form at 2 million years, then, we have traveled with the sun around the center of the Galaxy only:
225,000,000 years - 100%
002,000,000 years - x%
x = 0.89%
That is, a Sun orbit around the center of the Galaxy being 100%, we, as humans, have only traveled 0.89% of the Sun's orbit around the center of the Galaxy (not around the Galaxy, as the Sun is not at the edge of the Galaxy).
Furthermore, the way things are going, by the time the Sun completes revolution 21, there will no longer be a human species on earth, assuming it's now at revolution 20.5 since the Sun was formed.
Now, consider that civilizations as we know them only flourished from 10,000 B.C. to present. That is, roughly, 12,000 years. This means that since the end of the last Ice Age and the emergence of civilization, we have traveled with the Sun only 0.0053% of its orbit around the center of the Galaxy.
We indeed are "Dust in the Wind," as the song goes.

Interesting readings:
Speed of Earth and the Sun around the center of the Galaxy:
http://members.aol.com/nlpjp/speed.htm
Timeline of Evolution:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_evolution
Speed of Earth's Rotation:
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970401c.html
Timeline of Ancient Mesopotamia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Ancient_Mesopotamia

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