Journey From Planet Earth Into Endless Space

Space is big…! As we’ve just seen, British writer Douglas Adams (1952-2001) was spot-on when he declared that space is big:

Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the drug store, but that’s just peanuts to space.

Douglas Adams

Can we understand the universe? Famous astro-physicist Stephen Hawking thinks this about our universe:

We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.

(Stephen Hawking)

Do we really understand the universe? American writer Barry Lopez is much more humble in this regard:

We simply do not understand our place in the universe and have not the courage to admit it.

(Barry Lopez)

And why is there a universe at all? Edward P. Tryon has this interesting theory…:

In answer to the question of why it happened, I offer the modest proposal that our Universe is simply one of those things which happen from time to time.

(Edward P. Tryon)

And who else is out there in this dark endless space…? Thomas Henry Huxley, the English biologist (1825-1895) put it this way:

The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us.

(Thomas Henry Huxley)

And will we ever find out who this “player on the other side” is? Peter De Vries, the American visionary, novelist and satirist (1910-1993) seems to be somewhat pessimistic:

The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination. But the combination is locked up in the safe.

(Peter De Vries)