Bak 2 Skool 02: Space

first!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Funny Dan mentions that he tried Titans of Space in VR so he knows how big everything is - Titans of Space renders everything in one-millionth scale (otherwise things are too big/distant that all depth perception is lost, not making for good VR experience), so as massive as everything appears in the virtual tour, it's not even close to approaching true scale.

Amazed there were no T2 nuke scene or The Rock "A body can do that?" references during their first video. (yes, it comes up later but I mean when asking what would happen if Earth is next to the sun)

edit: chef kiss to the editing at 28:00

lol, at 24:15 and 30:00, Dan has a Dan version of the general idea of Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO5FwsblpT8

Good for him!

Bonus version with angry Dave Lang: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCwPS-jlpoA

Star goop

"There's so many aliens!" Lol this was great, Dan's mind being blown over an over again.

@janman the galaxy-brain Dan moment was epic. Good job.

Oh man, as a lifelong space enthusiast, I cannot wait to get frustrated at this episode.

As much as I want to hear Dan's take on the science, I really want to hear his take on stuff like Fermi's Paradox.

Can I just say this is the best new feature in a long time on Giantbomb? Because it is. Bakalar and Ryckert are just absolutely gold together.

For your enjoyment, what would happen if the Earth stopped spinning
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0-GxoJ_Pcg

I want the job title "Super Duper Scientist"

imagine being seven inches from the midday sun

The intro needs a shot of Dan cracking open an egg.

If you're interested, here is a great video to help grasp the size and scale of the solar system.

https://youtu.be/pR5VJo5ifdE

This is better than PBS Spacetime.

Show me the tree that would survive 1,000 mph winds, Dan

Hurricane Katrina maxed out at 175 btw

that's some fucking atomic bomb in your face-level winds we're talking about

(not to mention the problem where if everything stopped orbiting it would send the Earth itself plummeting into the sun)

Dan will likely never see this, so i'm really commenting for everybody else, but I wanted to respond to the bit where he asked "what makes us so special?" in regards to our status as in the universe? I want to talk about that bit because a lot of people approach these kinds of topic with that starting point of "what makes this so special?", and that starting point leads to a ton of confusion about topics like this.

A lot of the questions Dan asked here, and in other places, give the impression that his current understanding of "how this all works" involves a purpose, or point, or goal? You can see that when he asks things like "what makes us so special" or his "why is that happening" in regards to why the Earth is spinning.

There are reasons, there are explanations, but purpose? No siree. These things are simply *happening*. The answer is that nothing makes us special, other than our luck in existing in this specific place at this specific time. Bakalar touched briefly on the Goldilocks zone, and that's really essentially it: we're in one of those places capable of supporting life, but there's no purpose or anything like that around it. There are plenty of reasons and explanations for why life is possible here, but there is no *purpose* towards life existing here. There's a hundred thousand different things that happened for us to exist here in 2021, but purpose isn't involved.

Great episode!

This all comes with the caveat that of course, I do not know or have any proof of the existence of any kind of higher power. But that's a different conversation altogether honestly

That ending montage!

This one is so much less frustrating then the first episode. From my own perspective. Dan seemed to be more open to accept things as facts rather than getting lost in the weeds where Bakalar can't help him.

This reflects a general attitude towards physical science I have observed in the general public. Maybe it's because NASA had a brilliant PR campaign or astrophysics had longer time to mature. But, the average layperson would have a much easier time grasping general astronomical concepts than anything to do with the nano or molecular or the atomic world. Despite the fact that, day to day, our interaction with the small is far more frequent and useful than our interaction with the big.

I remember Brian Greene had a great documentary on string theories. I still didn't understand anything about string theories after watching it. But he had a great description about the difference between the Newtonian world and the quantum world. I think it's called "The Elegant Universe".

I share Dan's feeling of comfort in regards to our insignificance. Thinking about the vastness of space has long been a coping mechanism for my anxieties in life, in ways even my shrink is surprised by. I think the human ego can sometimes feel that FOMO Jeff mentions and that is why the existential dread of that is real (and I'm not immune to it) but those with anxieties that expand the importance of things to the level of emotional pain beyond what is really called for (Cognitive distortions to bust out the therapy term for them), the realization that it just doesn't matter, it's ok, we are just cells in a greater system that is so vastly huge, our lives just a systemic process within a mind boglingly high amount of other, larger systemic processes in how the universe operates, it really, you know, takes the pressure off. Also, so does beer.

Yay for existential dread!!!

Jeff misunderstands Galactiduck's motives (understandable due to the ongoing conversation and pausing/resuming of the video). In that particular answer to Fermi, Galactiduck represents an apex predator. They aren't destroying species that would otherwise destroy themselves. They are destroying species that might achieve a level of technology that could one day challenge Galactiduck hegemony. They are the Reapers from Mass Effect, the Hunters of the Dawn from the Heritage Trilogy, or the Harvesters from Independence Day. I absolutely love talking about the possible answers to the Fermi Paradox!

Great episode, very entertaining! It was a good idea to make the focus of the episode the scale of the universe!

Good ol Dan. If you aren't listening to the Fire Escape cast ya should

Constellations are useful because it helps you figure out the night sky without references. It's a useful way of identifying what you're looking at. Not purely astronomy, they're semi-practical.

Thank you, Gravity, for not throwing me off this crazy, spinning, county fair ride called Earth.

This episode was a lot of fun. It reminded me of project beast!

When Dan said "it doesn't feel like we're moving fast", that's kind of the central thing about relativity. If you and I passed each other in the dead of space, in a part where there were no stars we could see, who's moving and who's staying still?

Relativity says that "motion" isn't one body staying still and another moving, both bodies are 'moving' in relation to the other. There is no true stationary point.

Great episode!

This was entirely enjoyable. If a little frustrating at times. I would so have wanted to jump in there and clear things up. Not that I am an expert; everything I would have said would have been equally wrong.

Please get a telescope Dan! There are a lot of things in our solar system you can (with the help of apps) see that are so very beautiful.

In regards to the intro: you can actually see the rings of Saturn with binoculars. Just find a dark place and take your time.

I personally am with Dan. The scale makes me feel less important and that is a good thing.

i want hank green from tiktok on this show

I'm gonna need to see some fan art of Blackhole long finger Dan

While your points are true about trying to have objective measurements of motion and all that, I think Dan's remarks were more about the human gut feeling of moving around at high speeds.

The quicker point to make is that Dan flies in aircraft travelling at 900 km/h and doesn't really notice it once he's cruising in the air, the same way the Earth is both moving and rotating very quickly and he doesn't notice it. Human senses (your gut, your inner ear) perceive acceleration/deceleration due to the forces you feel on your body; the only time humans directly feel constant high speed is when air resistance is buffeting you around because you're not in an enclosed, aerodynamic shape. To make an analogy that might be more immediately helpful to Dan, the Earth is like an enclosed aircraft that has reached top speed while flying over the ocean, and there's nothing close enough to look at to give your body a true sense of its speed.

But yes, to your point, its "true speed" is arbitrary based on your frame of reference. I just don't think immediately introducing relativity is needed to address Dan's sense of not feeling like he's moving fast.

I might be in the minority but I love Dan! Most of the stuff he does is gold and Id be happy to keep my premium just for this show. Great job!

Another great episode, I had a lot of fun with it. I love how obvious it becomes to Dan that there has to be tons of aliens if you just consider the scale of the universe. Beautiful stuff. Wish more people could get an education like this tbh. Great that we have a lot of resources online dedicated to that these days. Need to spread more.

Can I just say how ridiculous it is how low Dan and Jeff are compared to where the desks are.. haha

Honestly, these are great. Kurzgesagt is a legit amazing channel too.

In the first episode I was a bit annoyed, that Jeff does not know more about that stuff, but I'm completely on board now, even with that little frustration and it makes me appreciate Dan so much more. And it convinced me again, that he is actually pretty smart. His questions are often very smart and hit kind of the philosophical nail on the head. Will keep watching these.

The important thing about the Observable Universe is that the edge of it is the limit we can see because there has not been enough time since the big bang for light to have traveled any further. It's not technology that makes us unable to see past it, it's physics. Looking through space is looking through time, and the edge of the observable universe is looking back to the fraction of a second after the big bang.

@stuewe said:

Perfect. I laughed out loud. Jan is an international treasure.

Taking a Astronomy class in college was the best. Ya'll don't even know!

Im glad this existential mindblowing actually eased his anxiety for once.

I love these. I getting moments of genuine laughter. Not at Dan, but just sharing the moment. Thank you all!

This is an absolute joy to watch. I think the bg music and clever editing go an awful long way too, so kudos on that front.

A live finale would be incredible.

Always happy to have more Dan on the internet and I feel like Giant Bomb captures him and his Danliness better than anyone.

Hello ladies I've got them event horizon fingers if you know what I'm saying.

Event Horizons: Most blackholes would be big enough at at the event horizon there is enormous forces acting. Either spinning stuff that are falling into it or just the pull of gravity. Dan wouldn't survive the forces. The G's would be intense. Inside we'd

Planets Lining up: They kind of do, the spin causes the dust everything is made of to make sort of a ring around the sun. The planets sort of line up on a plane. Not perfectly.

Jupiter: It's a gradient of thin atmosphere at first and becomes denser until it's compressed into something like a liquid. The core might be metalic liquid hydrogen. If you were indestructible and thrown into Jupiter, you freefall for a while, keep slowing as things get thicker and then hit a point where the atmosphere is as dense and sender than you and you'd float there. It would be hot and lots of violent currents.

Please let this show go on forever.

Is this going to be uploaded in podcast form on the Premium feed?