Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell
3 HN recommenders · recommended in 6 months, 2021–2024
11:41 · 24M views · May 11, 2021
Kurzgesagt explains why, even with science-fiction technology, most of the universe is permanently out of reach because of cosmic expansion and finite resources.
Cited in cosmology threads as an accessible visual explanation of the unreachable universe and its expansion limits.
8 comments from Hacker News
I always appreciate content like this which is easy to digest but still inspires awe in the universe around us. Scrolling around the map and looking further and further back in time reminded me of this Kurzgesagt video [0]. It's crazy to think how much of the universe is lost to and unreachable by us. Kurzgesagt has a lot of great content (even if it's a bit cartoonish). I'm sure they get things wrong, but I feel like they make an effort to research the topic first. [0] this video
This is forgetting to account for the accelerating expansion of the universe. Even if one were to depart from Earth today, traveling at light speed, 94% of the observable universe is already impossible to reach. See this excellent video for more detail: this video
I've been enjoying the kurzgesagt collection of videos[1] which discusses the same phenomena, and how we literally can never travel to large swaths of the universe. [1] this video
> Rather it's that the rate of expansion of the universe is accelerating, so that we're moving away from parts of it faster than its light can cover the distance to us. It will never reach us. It's actually even worse than that. Because of the accelerating expansion of the universe, over time the part of the universe that we can observe will get smaller, allowing us to see less and less of it. Eventually, all that we'll be able to see is our own local group of galaxies, where gravitational attraction will win out over the universe's expansion. However, this won't really be a problem for a few billion years. Relevant Kurzgesagt video: this video
The video doesn't follow the timeline. The video and voice over is still displaying and explaining about white dwarfs after all the stars have burned out, including red dwarves. It looks pretty, but it's incongruous and doesn't fulfill what the title promises in that it doesn't follow its own time lapse. Here's one[1] that actually makes sense in only 9 mins, albeit without the trendy soundtrack. Here's a Kurzgesagt[2] that gets pretty close to the subject. [1] [LINK] [2] this video