Be Amazed

You probably think this is going to be about Stephen Strasburg.  It's not, but he was amazing.  The story is covered in a million different locations so I won't even point you to a link.  For those living on a different planet (see below), Strasburg is a twenty-one year old professional baseball pitcher who made his major league debut last night with the Washington Nationals.  My team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, was his foil.  Tinfoil.  Strasburg pitched seven innings, gave up four hits, two runs, walked none and struck out fourteen.  That line score doesn't even do justice to the incredibly dominating performance he authored. Here are two quotes:

"It was the best pitched game I've ever seen"--Washington Nationals teammate Adam Dunn

Just for the record, Dunn's played in 1,348 games

"It was one of the most amazing nights I've spent in a major league ballpark and I've covered baseball for thirty years."--Tim Kurkjian, ESPN

So there you have it.  He was amazing.  That isn't the point of this post.  I want you to look at one or both of these videos.  It shows the size of our planet relative to other planets, stars, etc.  The first is 4:34 long, but has the benefit of some music.  The second is 1:34, so if you pressed for time maybe that's the answer.

Stephen Hawking (if you click on that link and you're interested in space and science you will definitely kill your next hour, just tellin' ya) recently posited that many other societies most likely existed, but once they figured out the equation e=mc^2 (squared), he guesses their shelf life is/was about 10,000 years.  He doesn't think we will survive the next 1,000 years unless we spread into space because there are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet.  Not to be an alarmist, but Albert Einstein sorted the equation out about 100 years ago.  Hawking's clock is ticking.

And how many Stephen Strasburg's do you think are out there?

(Please also check out the Get Involved post below.)