Quizzes & Puzzles11 mins ago
It Has Been Written That There Are More Stars Than Grains Of Sand On Earth!!
Cannot believe this. I went to Goa and a fistful of sand must have contained thousands
Imageine the whole beach content? Is there any scientific method used to calculate the theory?
Imageine the whole beach content? Is there any scientific method used to calculate the theory?
Answers
A couple of further points: 1. "What about it?" Was in answer to "what about Barry Island?" Your question was quite important and I wasn't meaning to be so blunt about that. 2. This "fact" tends to get stated in all sorts of ways, e.g. More stars than grains of sand on all the beaches on the world, or more stars in the Milky Way galaxy than grains of sand in just one...
17:29 Sun 24th Feb 2013
I think Jim + Jtp explained the methods use to calculate uncountable objects by taking an average, pretty well.
Surely we mustn't see it as hard cold fact, more as a means to allow the mind to attach physical properties to a concept involving such great numbers, that our statistically retarded brains can't draw on other life examples where we've encountered 70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 of anything!!
The human brain uses a mapping technique to assign an object it see's with defining characteristics and properties. It takes the sensory responses from the interaction with the object and lists:
Sand - Browny/Yellow, tiny, hard, inedible, plentiful; Application - Sandcastles, cement, hourglass; Location - beaches, desert, sea floor etc.
By mapping an object's qualities, the brain can use it's known characteristics to draw a comparison with any other mapped object in it's memory. This is an effective method of cognition for the brain's environment on Earth in our scale, however, it's flaw is the inability to then add any sort of meaning to huge numbers resulting from research data. No comparison.
The 'more stars than sand' example gives the brain a well known (mapped) object (grain of sand), a scale we are comfortable with (the Earth) and the natural assumption we arrive at to conceive how many grains there must be, allowing us to then compare this vast (but workable) number with cosmologists best guess for stars in the Universe [scale + comparison].
p.s. I've heard the 'number of grains of sand on Earth' used as a different comparison on the other scale. Prof. Brian Cox i know used it and said "There are more molecules in this glass of water (16oz glass approx) than grains of sand on Earth." Maybe the multi-verse theorists will start using it too!!
Good question though,
IHI
Surely we mustn't see it as hard cold fact, more as a means to allow the mind to attach physical properties to a concept involving such great numbers, that our statistically retarded brains can't draw on other life examples where we've encountered 70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 of anything!!
The human brain uses a mapping technique to assign an object it see's with defining characteristics and properties. It takes the sensory responses from the interaction with the object and lists:
Sand - Browny/Yellow, tiny, hard, inedible, plentiful; Application - Sandcastles, cement, hourglass; Location - beaches, desert, sea floor etc.
By mapping an object's qualities, the brain can use it's known characteristics to draw a comparison with any other mapped object in it's memory. This is an effective method of cognition for the brain's environment on Earth in our scale, however, it's flaw is the inability to then add any sort of meaning to huge numbers resulting from research data. No comparison.
The 'more stars than sand' example gives the brain a well known (mapped) object (grain of sand), a scale we are comfortable with (the Earth) and the natural assumption we arrive at to conceive how many grains there must be, allowing us to then compare this vast (but workable) number with cosmologists best guess for stars in the Universe [scale + comparison].
p.s. I've heard the 'number of grains of sand on Earth' used as a different comparison on the other scale. Prof. Brian Cox i know used it and said "There are more molecules in this glass of water (16oz glass approx) than grains of sand on Earth." Maybe the multi-verse theorists will start using it too!!
Good question though,
IHI
Many thanks IHI - I hope the reasoning is clear even though obviously I skipped most of the working.
@ Wildwood -- no-one can ever do more than guess the number of stars in the unobservable universe, since by its nature we will not be able to know about it. I think it's even an open question how "large" this unobservable region is -- some theories, that I believe are not yet ruled out, even suggest that the universe we see is smaller than reality and there's a sort of double imaging effect going on. I don't do much Cosmology to know hwo well these ideas stand up to scrutiny. But anyway.
What we can do is set a reasonable upper bound for the number of stars, since it is safe to assume that on average the desnity of stars in this unobserbale universe will be the same as in the universe we can see. Then if you accepted inflation theory, this means that the unobservable universe can be both (a) huge compared to what we see, and (b) not much more than 10^23 times bigger.
So I think that means that the full, unobservable universe plus our own contains probably no more than 10^45 stars, and probably quite a lot less. This number is, I should say, my own guess and I make no claims about its accuracy. But I think it's probably in the right sort of scale.
@ Wildwood -- no-one can ever do more than guess the number of stars in the unobservable universe, since by its nature we will not be able to know about it. I think it's even an open question how "large" this unobservable region is -- some theories, that I believe are not yet ruled out, even suggest that the universe we see is smaller than reality and there's a sort of double imaging effect going on. I don't do much Cosmology to know hwo well these ideas stand up to scrutiny. But anyway.
What we can do is set a reasonable upper bound for the number of stars, since it is safe to assume that on average the desnity of stars in this unobserbale universe will be the same as in the universe we can see. Then if you accepted inflation theory, this means that the unobservable universe can be both (a) huge compared to what we see, and (b) not much more than 10^23 times bigger.
So I think that means that the full, unobservable universe plus our own contains probably no more than 10^45 stars, and probably quite a lot less. This number is, I should say, my own guess and I make no claims about its accuracy. But I think it's probably in the right sort of scale.
See my calculation done on 15th Feb.
Roughly we can see galaxies about 14 billion light years away, the approximate age of the Universe is 14 billion years. Therefore we can see objects at the "edge" of the Universe. The Universe is not isotropic but a reasonable estimate is that there are 10^10 galaxies of various sizes and at different stages of development.
An average galaxy may contain approximately 10^11 stars. The most numerous stars are the very dim Red Dwarf stars and these cannot be observed directly.
Our neighbouring galaxy, the Andromeda Galaxy, is approximately 2 million light years away. The distance is calculated by comparing the apparent magnitude of superluminous Cepheid Variable stars (standard candles) with their absolute magnitude. The use of Hubble's Law and redshift data is used on more distant galaxies where these Cepheids cannot be seen.
Even an uncertainty in the number of stars in the universe of +/- 1000% still conveys the idea of an immense number. I don't think the use of analogies for large numbers is particularly useful.
I did once calculate how high a pile of dollar bills would be to help imagine Bill Gates' $92 billion fortune !
Roughly we can see galaxies about 14 billion light years away, the approximate age of the Universe is 14 billion years. Therefore we can see objects at the "edge" of the Universe. The Universe is not isotropic but a reasonable estimate is that there are 10^10 galaxies of various sizes and at different stages of development.
An average galaxy may contain approximately 10^11 stars. The most numerous stars are the very dim Red Dwarf stars and these cannot be observed directly.
Our neighbouring galaxy, the Andromeda Galaxy, is approximately 2 million light years away. The distance is calculated by comparing the apparent magnitude of superluminous Cepheid Variable stars (standard candles) with their absolute magnitude. The use of Hubble's Law and redshift data is used on more distant galaxies where these Cepheids cannot be seen.
Even an uncertainty in the number of stars in the universe of +/- 1000% still conveys the idea of an immense number. I don't think the use of analogies for large numbers is particularly useful.
I did once calculate how high a pile of dollar bills would be to help imagine Bill Gates' $92 billion fortune !
There seem to be a few errors in that calculation. Firstly the average size of a grain of sand is of order 1mm so that there is 1 grain of sand in a cubic millimetre rather than 100 (though sizes vary so I suppose you could have gone for particularly small grains). Secondly an error of 1000% seems rather large - that would mean that the number of stars is between 10^23 and -10^23 a negative number!
Thirdly and most critically, the approximate age of the universe is 14 billion years but we can in fact see galaxies as far away at about 32 billion light years due to the weirdness of General Relativity. The Observable Universe is about 93 billion light years across, and the unobservable universe as I mentioned earlier could be as many as 10^23 times bigger.
Thirdly and most critically, the approximate age of the universe is 14 billion years but we can in fact see galaxies as far away at about 32 billion light years due to the weirdness of General Relativity. The Observable Universe is about 93 billion light years across, and the unobservable universe as I mentioned earlier could be as many as 10^23 times bigger.
So just exactly how big is the typical grain of sand to begin with?
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Whatever size you use for the universe or a grain of sand in drawing a comparison to the number of stars it contains, it might be worth mentioning that their number in no way diminishes the importance of the one among them all from which we derive the potential to make any calculations and to be subsequently amazed, the one we call . . . the Sun.
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Whatever size you use for the universe or a grain of sand in drawing a comparison to the number of stars it contains, it might be worth mentioning that their number in no way diminishes the importance of the one among them all from which we derive the potential to make any calculations and to be subsequently amazed, the one we call . . . the Sun.
The evidence that the ancients used such lenses for stargazing is nonexistent. And even if ancient telescopes existed, what evidence is there that Abraham or the writer of Genesis had access to one? Actually, God’s promise to Abraham is just one of many examples of the Bible’s scientific accuracy. It was apparently without the aid of a telescope that the prophet Jeremiah reported a similarly accurate observation: ‘The army of the heavens cannot be counted, neither can the sand of the sea be measured.’—Jeremiah 33:22.
Oops . . . jumped the gun. :o/
Paste number
7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
here: http://
Paste number
7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
here: http://
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