What Astrophysics Has Taught Me About Changing the World |
Today, like yesterday, I wake up and decide to make the world a better place.
I know, I know. There are over 8 billion people living on Earth. There are more places than any one of us will ever see, and more cultures than we will ever understand. How could a single person make an impact? How could a single person change the world for the better?
Many people would say it’s impossible. And at barely 5’2”, I’m glaringly aware of my literal smallness. As an astrophysicist, I know that I take up only about 10-83 times the volume of the observable Universe: a number so small I can’t wrap my head around it. The closest comparison I can muster is that I’m about the size of an atom in the scale of the solar system. And even then, I’d still be a bit smaller.
But none of that matters. My goal is still entirely within reach. That’s something that astrophysics has also taught me: small forces can make big changes.
The proof is under our feet. Today, Earth returns to the point in the solar system where it landed 365.24 days—almost, but not quite. Almost imperceptibly, it overshoots.
This cascade of small influences may, at first glance, go unnoticed. Nevertheless, slowly but surely, the trajectory of the entire planet budges.
At first glance, the Earth’s motion may appear to be shaped entirely by a single source: its most powerful influence, the Sun. But the Earth-Sun system is not static. Instead, our planet is pulled in many directions by innumerable small forces.
Its motion is shaped by the other seven planets in our solar system, each hundreds of millions of miles away. Those massive planetary neighbors had their motion fundamentally shaped by the tugs of innumerable ancient asteroids in the early solar system. Those, in turn, were shaped by the influence of distant passing stars—whose own trajectories were altered by the collective impact of stars, gas, and dark matter across the Milky Way.
This cascade of small influences may, at first glance, go unnoticed. Nevertheless, slowly but surely, the trajectory of the entire planet budges. The direction of our world is determined by countless infinitesimal forces compounding to move not only mountains, but entire planets.
Just as the Earth’s motion is shaped by the sum of small forces, the direction of........