Because of the brevity of our lives, the spans of time and space I am about to describe are impossible to comprehend. But here goes.

First, where we are: As far as we now know the universe is about 13.5 billion years old. We live in one of the galaxies of the universe that we have named the Milky Way. Light traveling at 186,000 miles per second takes 100,000 years to go from one side of the Milky Way to the other. That's how big this one galaxy is.

Less than 100 years ago, we believed that our galaxy was the whole universe. Then, in 1927 Edwin Hubble made a truly remarkable discovery. The Milky Way was not the whole universe, but only one galaxy among many, many galaxies -- More galaxies across more space than we can imagine. The Milky Way has 100 billion stars -- or our Sun plus 100 billion suns like it. And it turns out that there are 100 billion galaxies, each containing 100 billion stars. We live on a tiny, tiny dot on the edge of Erehwon. That is where we are.

Second, when we are: As far as we now know the Earth is 4.5 billion years old. That is a very long time. But imagine that instead of all those billions of years, the Earth was only one day old. That is, the clock starts at midnight, the moment the earth is born, and then travels around the dial until the second midnight and that is right now. The whole of Earth's life in just 24 hours. With me?

So, we look at our clock and it shows midnight, the moment the earth comes into being. And then the second hand, and minute hand, and hour hand begin moving forward. Watch the clock as hour after hour passes -- this is the age of the Earth. It is impossible to fathom. We have to watch all the way to 11:59:53pm -- just seven seconds ago -- to see the dawn of our most ancient direct ancestor, Homo Erectus. Only one and one-half seconds ago our race appeared -- Homo Sapien. Watch the second hand closely, midnight is approaching. As the second hand sweeps past 11:59:59pm and on toward the final second, civilization arrives, less than one-half second ago. You and I were born micro-seconds ago. The clock reaches midnight and it is right now, this very moment. For almost the whole 24 hours the Earth was evolving from sludge to dinosaurs, and making billions of revolutions around the Sun. And just in the final few seconds does anything recognizable begin to happen. That is when we are.

Where? Either in the middle of nowhere, or the edge of forever. When? Either the end of time, or the beginning of something new.

So, remain calm. And stay in your seats with your seatbelts securely fastened. We just got here. GTC