Sad Light Cone (Patreon)

Hey guys, just to add to the holiday cheer I wanted to share a graphic I made as part of a collaboration with Jake from Vsauce3 a little while ago. Jake's video Traveling Light  is a beautiful illustration of how the cosmic speed limit means that distant regions of our universe are fundamentally disconnected. I made this graphic to illustrate how two intelligent civilizations may never be able to interact in a meaningful way, even if they can observe each other at different times. In my graphic I had a signal from a more advanced civilization reach us, prompting us to send a spaceship to investigate. Due to the large distance, we arrive after that civilization has ended. So even though our civilizations exist at the same time, it never makes it to our future light cone. My graphic was even sadder than the one Jake produced - I destroyed the Earth before the spaceship could return home. Bummer. Anyway, happy holidays everyone! Check out Jake's vid  if you haven't.