The truth is in the details

I have been thinking for some time about writing a post about those pieces of knowledge that, upon acquiring them, left an impression on me or surprised me enough, at the time or even now, so that I still remember them. Or other personal thoughts derived from acquired knowledge that also left a mark in some way.

The truth is, the vast majority of these “impacts” from knowledge could not be pinpointed to a specific age… I have no idea but I do know that I still remember them.

Here are a few of them, in random order…

The light that reaches us and that we see from some stars left the star long before the dinosaurs existed on earth (or even earlier). That piece of knowledge still fascinates me.

On earth there is no “up” or “down” in absolute terms. As it was thought until then, basically because on earth there is “down” and “up” since we have ground to walk on and/or gravity that pulls us; in space there is no up or down, so people living at the South Pole are not “lower” than those at the North Pole.

There are people who, while we celebrate Christmas warmly bundled up, they celebrate in shorts (Australia, for example). That, if I recall correctly, struck me deeply, perhaps influenced by cartoons in which it always snowed at Christmas.

Being aware of the immensity of the universe. That the sun is just one more star, and that other stars are suns like ours, or even much larger. I suppose this is a piece of knowledge that has marked us all when we became aware of the immensity of the universe.

When I learned that only a few centuries ago, people of African descent were considered a different species that was positioned between humans and monkeys, and that this was accepted by most of the “scientists” of that time. There were charts that represented it like that.

That objects do not have color, or rather, that the color we see is not directly from the object but from the sun (or light bulb or any external light source); light contains all the colors and the object “absorbs” some colors and reflects others, which are the ones that “give it color”.

In Egypt, Eratosthenes determined the circumference of the earth using TRIGONOMETRY. They knew it was round and knew its size long before Christ.

That air has weight. I always found it amusing when I was told this… does air have weight? At first it did not seem so. It turns out that our body generates an external pressure equal to the weight of the air. That is why in space, besides suffocating due to lack of oxygen, our body would explode because it would create an external pressure to counteract the pressure of air that is not there… I have always found that curious.

When I came to the conclusion that using “ten” to explain the creation of everything didn’t solve anything… because then, who created ten? We remain in the same situation, not knowing the initial creator, but left with a ten that we don’t know what to do with. (I have never been religious but I remember thinking that at least believers could be at ease believing in god, when I reached that conclusion, I didn’t fully understand the believers either…), nor do I recall at what age this occurred…

The contradiction of understanding an infinite universe. How can something be infinite? But even worse is to believe that it is finite, because if it is finite, when does it end?… nothing?… haha… A question that only has two answers and both are 100% incomprehensible to the human mind (or at least to mine).

A piece of knowledge related to a previous lecture, knowing that by the time of Christopher Columbus it had already been known for 2000 years that the earth was round.

How I realized that if in the solar system there are 8/9 planets and in 1 there is life, and on top of that there is intelligent life, it is absurd with the knowledge we have now to say that life is a unique and marvelous fact.

With the information we have so far (of 9 planets, 1 with life), it is normal to think that the universe is full of life. Even if only statistically.

When I understood the concept of a thousand light years… it means that we would take 1000 years traveling at the speed of light… and on earth you can press a switch to turn on a light bulb on the other side of the world and it would be almost instantaneous… even now, these distances astonish me.

When I learned that one of the reasons for the hatred toward Jews, from the Christian world, was that “Jew” sounded phonetically like Judas… the apostle who betrayed Jesus. That Judas was also Jewish, like other apostles and like Jesus himself. Well, the other reasons are not much more consistent than this. I am not too concerned with the topic, what intrigues me is why so many people wanted to kill the Jews at different points in history… (By the way, with this I do not take any position regarding Israel; I’m simply noting a fact that I find curious and interesting enough to understand human beings and their fears and neuroses… Look up antisemitism on Wikipedia and read about it.)

When I became aware of my own mortality… although what shocked me the most was knowing that I would cease to exist but the earth would keep turning, other people would live, discover things and I would not see it… that, if I recall correctly, deeply affected me when I was very young.

When I read what Einstein discovered, that time is not a straight line… but depends on the speed at which you move… it still surprises me… That example of the twins where one stays on earth and the other travels at the speed of light (assuming it can be done… which for now is physically impossible, well, they say so… I don’t care) and when they meet again one is old and the other much younger… still seems like science fiction to me…

I’m sure I have many more but right now none come to mind…