In one second a beam of light travels 186,000 miles, nearly 300,000 kilometers or seven times around the Earth. Instead, we measure distance with the speed of light. The dimensions of the Cosmos are so large that using familiar units of distance, such as meters or miles, chosen for their utility on Earth, would make little sense.
These aspirations are not, I think, irreverent, although they may trouble whatever gods may be. Some part of our being knows this is from where we came. Recently, we have waded a little out to sea, enough to dampen our toes or, at most, wet our ankles. From it we have learned most of what we know. The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. The Cosmos is rich beyond measure-in elegant facts, in exquisite interrelationships, in the subtle machinery of awe. Skepticism enables us to distinguish fancy from fact, to test our speculations. Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. Those explorations required skepticism and imagination both. I believe our future depends on how well we know this Cosmos in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky. They remind us that humans have evolved to wonder, that understanding is a joy, that knowledge is prerequisite to survival. In the last few millennia we have made the most astonishing and unexpected discoveries about the Cosmos and our place within it, explorations that are exhilarating to consider.
And yet our species is young and curious and brave and shows much promise.
In a cosmic perspective, most human concerns seem insignificant, even petty. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home. The size and age of the Cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us-there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. THE COSMOS IS ALL THAT IS OR EVER WAS OR EVER WILL BE.
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