Brian Johnson uses a Google Sheet called "Perspective Builder" to convert human lifespans into days (about 28,000 if you live to 76.7 years) and compare them to the universe's age of 13.7 billion years. The math shows how small our time really is, meant to push you to use it better.
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Optimize plus one. Not too long ago we hung out.
With Aristotle's little river creatures to get some perspective on the brevity of life. Recall Montaigne told us Aristotle says that there are little animals by the river Hypanis.
They live only a day.
The one that dies at 8 o' clock in the morning dies in its youth.
The one that dies at five in.
The afternoon and dies in its decrepitude. Which of us does not laugh to see this moment of duration considered in.
Terms of happiness or unhappiness? The length or shortness of our duration, if we compare it with eternity, or yet with the duration of mountains, rivers, stars, trees, and even of some animals.
Is no less ridiculous. Not too long before that, we hung out with a fly.
Recall that our beautiful little house fly gets about 28 days. 28 times longer than Aristotle's little river creature.
But still not a whole lot of time, eh? And all that got me thinking.
One day for the river creature, 28.
Days for the fly.
How many days do we get? Enter Google Sheet for the sake of.
A round number of 28,000 days, let's assume we live to 76.712-3286.
Considerably better than the river critter and the fly.
But still not a ton, huh? Sigh. Alas, continuing my little calculations on the sheet now entitled Perspective Builder, which is linked in this one, I added some.
Data for how long the universe has been around and how long physicists think it'll endure. Note.
God bless the folks who do that kind of math.
So science says that our universe has been around for about 13.7 billion years. Not accounting for leap years. Wink. That's 5,500,000,500,000,000 days.
Surprisingly round number.
Looking forward, scientists tell us We've got about 5 billion good years left in the universe. Once again, not accounting for leap years. That's another 1,825,000,000,000 days.
Again, nice and round.
So all in from start to finish, our universe will exist for about 6,825,500,000,000 days. Now, on that cosmic scale, let's compare how long that river critter gets vis.
A vis the fly. Vis a vis you and me.
That river critter that lives for a day?
Well, he or is it she gets.
To live for a span of about 0.0000000015% the total span of the universe's existence. The fly 0.000000%. The human.000.41%. Yeah, my head's officially exploded. On a cosmic scale, our time here is kind of brief, so let's make.
The most of it.
When? Today.
