Good Reading

I just started reading Cosmos by Carl Sagan. It's incredibly fascinating stuff. The kind of stuff you have to read very slowly, maybe several times over, sometimes because it’s difficult to process, sometimes because it’s completely mind-blowing.

The first sentence of the book explains "The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be." Page 2 goes on: "If we were randomly inserted into the Cosmos, the chance that we would find ourselves on or near a planet would be less than one in a billion trillion trillion (a one followed by 33 zeroes). In everyday life such odds are called compelling. Worlds are precious."

I actually said, "Whoa," out loud as I was reading. That’s a pretty strong reaction to page 2 of any book.