A billion light years

[El_Machinae]

That word, "billion" boggles my mind. It's a number that I can use in analogies, but I have trouble visualising it. 1,000,000,000. It's huge.

We're seeing grander and grander scope in this universe.

Giant structures stretching more than a billion light years across have been revealed by two new maps of the distribution of galaxies in the universe. The updated atlases lend more support to the idea that the universe is dominated by dark matter and dark energy.

NewScientist

They made a map of over a million galaxies. Okay, a million, that's not so bad. I can imagine a million. I know how to have a million dollars. I can get a feel for how many people is 1 million people.

Then I realise it's galaxies. Each galaxy has billions of stars. Ulp. There it is again, "billion". And again, my mind is boggled at the size of this universe.

And they see structure and rhythm in scales on the billions of light years.

 

[Truronian]

Are these 'giant structures' arms of galaxies?

 

[Bozo Erectus]

Kind of puts ones petty little concerns in perspective doesnt it.

 

[El_Machinae]

Are these 'giant structures' arms of galaxies?

Galaxies are nowhere near 'billions of light years' in size. Galaxies are wee-tiny at this scale.

 

[betazed]

Kind of puts ones petty little concerns in perspective doesnt it.

Does it? For me when I start thinking about such things I lose all perspective.

It is impossible to visualize how large a billion ly is.

 

[warpus]

^^ Or how small an atom is.

 

[Truronian]

Galaxies are nowhere near 'billions of light years' in size. Galaxies are wee-tiny at this scale.

Sorry, I didn't phrase that well... Are these structures giant arms made of multiple galaxies in otherwise-empty space?

 

[Lillefix]

In Norway a billion is actually 1 000 000 000 000. One thousand times more.

 

[El_Machinae]

What's in between a million and a billion?

(No wonder your debt seems small)

 

[Mise]

What's in between a million and a billion?

(No wonder your debt seems small)

A "milliard".

 

[Bozo Erectus]

Does it? For me when I start thinking about such things I lose all perspective.

It is impossible to visualize how large a billion ly is.

I dont know what a billion is, but I understand 'big' and 'small' well enough.

At the scale of this image, forget about us, our entire solar system is smaller than an atom.

 

[El_Machinae]

A "milliard".

Jesus H. Christ. Why the hell is there this confusion, and why am I finding out about it now?

So - using zeros ... how old is the universe? I've heard it was 13 billion years old ... but now I have no idea what that means.

 

[Mise]

Jesus H. Christ. Why the hell is there this confusion, and why am I finding out about it now?

So - using zeros ... how old is the universe? I've heard it was 13 billion years old ... but now I have no idea what that means.

Britain and the rest of the English speaking world adopted the American usage of "billion" a long time ago. So 13 billion years means 13 x10^9. It's only European languages that count billion as 10^12.

 

[Masquerouge]

Yay! Billions of galaxies made of billions of stars, and yet it's only 10^18... I think chess has 10^80 games possible. And of course the old story about doubling the number of grains of rice on a chess board will end with 2^64 grains of rice, way way way more than the number of stars in the entire universe !

 

[GeoModder]

Britain and the rest of the English speaking world adopted the American usage of "billion" a long time ago. So 13 billion years means 13 x10^9. It's only European languages that count billion as 10^12.

It also means we have a separate expression for 10^15.

 

[thetrooper]

It also means we have a separate expression for 10^15.

Aye ~ the game played on a table with balls and 'sticks'.

 

[CrazyScientist]

I've found this site useful for trying to comprehend huge numbers. It does examples with pennies (height stacked, surface area covered) with diagrams showing the stacks beside people, tall buildings, football fields, etc.

http://kokogiak.com/megapenny/default.asp

 

[BCLG100]

a billion is different in american than it is in England apparantly

in America it is something like a thousand millions but in England its a million millions... if that makes sense.