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The great astronomer Carl Sagan once speculated in his legendary 1980s television series Cosmos whether complex beings could evolve on a planet without solid ground, like the gas-giant Jupiter. Such creatures’ day-to-day lives would have to unfold entirely in the “air,” without ever touching the ground. But closer to home, those aliens are already among us.
The question may sound banal, but what is the difference between big and small? A fresh look at our proportions casts new light on why size really matters.
Berlin gets under your skin
A sweeping vista over a big city like Berlin is one of the highlights of any trip, one of those deep-breath-wow moments. The hectic buzz, hum and action, can leave us with goose bumps. The view is a great reminder that we owe this very experience, like any other, to a vast network of buzzing mini-metropolises hidden under our skin. When it comes to pondering the haphazard dose of good luck that is our existence, there’s no better place to start than our body cells – the miniature building blocks we’re made of. Odd as it may sound, a cell and Berlin have much in common.
Everything was better in the good old days
It’s annoying to admit it, but maybe our parents got it right: Everything was better in the good old days. It’s often nostalgia that leads people to spout this adage. But its proponents don’t necessarily have rose-tinted spectacles on. Read more..
Our night sky in a grain of sand
”Quintillion kilometers”, “billions of light years” – flicking through text books, how on earth are we meant to compute the size of the universe? Is it possible to visualise our cosmic home without getting befuddled by numbers ending with a ridiculous number of zeros?
Flour Power!
Holiday! White carbs time! Finally, we can escape the usual routines and seize the opportunity to relax healthy eating habits. Our digestive system gets a culture shock at the sudden lack of fibre. By the fifth day of constipation, the question becomes pressing: What happened to all those pizzas, ciabattas and other mediterranean delights we devoured over the last days?
Plenty of room at the bottom
Us humans typically chase all that is bigger and better. Our quest for novelty takes us further and further afield. But why not take the opposite tack? Zooming in to what is right in front of our noses, and even inside it, unlocks all sorts of potential. Welcome to the crazy world of atoms, the building blocks of matter, including you and me.
A stroll to the beginning of time
Where do we come from? What is the origin of the world? How did it all start? We humans have pondered those questions from time immemorial. Our existence has always been the greatest of all mysteries. To provide an answer, every culture has developed its own creation myth – one more fantastic than the next.
Chilling out midway between atoms and stars
You know that sweaty-palmed, light-headed, dizzy sensation we humans get, when peering down into an abyss or straight up to the top of a tower? This vertigo also sets in when we think about our size in this world: Looking up, the sun and other stars are mind-bogglingly vast; looking down, the world of atoms is staggeringly mini.
Mathematics’ dirty little secret
How can a few numbers on a piece of paper prove the existence of black holes and elementary particles, without needing to look through a telescope or a microscope?
Welcome to (near) perfect Virtual Reality
What could a Virtual Reality System be like in the future? Forget cumbersome hi-tech specs and imagine a film made with two high-resolution cameras wired straight to your brain, creating a vivid optical 3D illusion. No problem. Thankfully, you are already the proud owner of this very system courtesy of YourBrain Studios Inc.!
For the first time ever, we can have a closer look at Pluto this week. After a journey of almost ten years, the spacecraft New Horizons will pass the mysterious dwarf planet, which is a mind-boggling five billion kilometres away. Is it possible to really grasp that sort of distance? I think it is – with the help of a kid’s model globe and the Berlin TV tower.
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