Saturday, March 10, 2007



Katie emailed me this video. She thought it would be right up my alley. She was right.

The imagery is derived from the Millennium Simulation, which shows the distribution of galaxies in our universe. I'm intrigued by how organic this all looks when seen from a distance; it's like peering at some perfectly inconceivable brain -- and perhaps in some sense it is.

5 comments:

vary said...

Greeat 'n' so shoort

fembot said...

Yes, it's very much like neurons firing, ey?

If there's infinity in distance, why not size?

Great animation.

W.M. Bear said...

I'm intrigued by how organic this all looks when seen from a distance; it's like peering at some perfectly inconceivable brain -- and perhaps in some sense it is.

Mac -- I've seen photomicrographs of brain-cell filaments juxtaposed with computer-generated images of the large-scale distribution of matter in the universe (including the dark-matter filaments that seem to bind the whole thing together). The resemblance is truly astonishing! In classical Platonic and Neoplatonic philosophy, Cosmos was indeed considered to be a living, godlike mind. (And so perhaps, as you suggest, it is.)

Justin Pasieka said...

Double-you Em Dee: I think Mac posted that juxtaposed image a while back. Either that or it was Reality Carnival.

One of my favourite animations of all time. There should be a law that has this playing on every single TV channel at least once an hour.

Justin Pasieka said...

Agh! I meant Double-you Em Bee of course.