Brewster Rockit by Tim Rickard for February 19, 2017

I never heard of the Planck length before. Interesting concept. But why does the known laws of physics end there? I would’ve thought it ends at the width of a neutrino.

Love the science stuff, Dr. Mel. Now, can we put this to practical use and find a way to mass-produce bacon-flavored frosted cereal?

A sting measures 10 to the minus 33 centimeters long, if you want to consider that.

What I found a Wikipedia:

In physics, the Planck length, denoted ℓP, is a unit of length, equal to 1.616229(38)×10−35 metres. It is a base unit in the system of Planck units, developed by physicist Max Planck. The Planck length can be defined from three fundamental physical constants: the speed of light in a vacuum, the Planck constant, and the gravitational constant.

Okay, you savvy Rockiteers…what does Dr. Mel mean by “from our position the universe is smaller than larger” ????

There is a mistake here, the smallest known item is Brewster’s brain measuring -4.3 to 343 nanogram.

As thick as two short Plancks?

I thought the observable universe was 26 Billion light years. Learned something.

But is it bigger on the inside?

Another mistake — not all neutrinos are yellow.

Great chart.

So, most of the universe is NOT bigger than a breadbox.

A bit outdated, but search YouTube for “Powers of Ten”. Always a highlight of my trips to the Science Museum back in the day…

So, how can the observable universe be 93 billion light years across when the universe is estimated to be 13.8 years old?!

The farthest objects we can see are closer than 14 billion light years.

Hope Rickard did more than Google and take the first source— Wikipedia!

Try these on for size [pun unintentional, but left in!]

https://futurism.com/how-can-the-diameter-of-the-universe-the-age/

https://www.quora.com/How-can-it-be-understood-that-the-universe-is-93-billion-light-years-across-and-yet-only-13-8-billion-years-old-1

In contrast, this tries to explain that it is larger, but arrives at around 45.7 billion light years.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/blogs/physics/2012/10/how-large-is-the-observable-universe/

This, though, gets us there

http://www.space.com/24073-how-big-is-the-universe.html

I feel like Brewster!

One more thing on this… There seems to be a problem with the definition of “observable”. If the distant galaxy or quasar we see is 12 billion light years away, but has moved much farther away in the meantime, that does not make its current distance (or state) something we are now observing! We are seeing it as it was 12 billion years ago— when it was that far away, not 90 billion light years away.

“Dr. Mel, paging Dr. Mel!”

“Pam, do you have something for my headache?!”

And the sun is 93 million miles from Earth. Coincidence? :-P

If the universe is expanding, does that mean that there is an edge to it? If so what would happen if you passed it?

Is this a logarithmic scale?

An interesting thing about our planet: In this unimaginably vast universe the Earth is equivalent to one grain of sand in the Sahara desert. We are not a big deal.