Dig the big bang

In Annie Hall, young Woody Allen explains to his doctor that he won’t do his homework because the universe is expanding, so what’s the point? His mother exasperatedly tells him, “You’re here in Brooklyn. Brooklyn is not expanding!”

I post this because I’ve been reading Coming Of Age In The Milky Way by Tim Ferris, as good a summary of the state of cosmology between two covers as a person could ask for. Thinking about the horrifying enormousness and ancientness of the universe might have depressed Woody Allen, but it has a paradoxically calming effect on me. Reading books like Ferris’ is my favorite form of meditation.

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