the Oldest and the Biggest

Are you interested in lists? For whatever reason I am. I like to know what the biggest, oldest, smallest, farthest, coldest ,tallest, fastest. . . I don't read Guiness or anything, but sometimes I wish I had one around.

For instance, years ago, when I studied dendrology (trees) I learned some interesting things about the natural world. Example: What do you think the oldest living thing is?? (I used to whip this one out at bars and parties and stuff. I've never gotten a correct answer, as far as I knew, according to my information. One guy came close once.)
Anyway, isn't it an interesting question? It brings in the the scope of the world, everything (living). Don't you think that somehow the answer to this question would make the world more beautiful, more amazing and unfathomable?? I think this why I love random, arcane facts--they make the world more magnificent, the breadth of life more limitless.

What about the largest living organism???. . . huh. What does the world look like to you? What is truly huge in your estimation. . . and how does that stack up to 'huge' in our greater human mind?

What is also interesting is that nether of these questions have one single answer--it isn't black and white. What exactly is "one single organism"?? What does "old' mean"? Who cares. . . lets answer all the varieties.


Are you interested??????

I decided to go to the internet and check what I thought I knew. According to Wikipedia, I was close, close enough. I at least made both lists, with several variation as well. I just had a few places wrong, and a few years on the age thing. Here they are:

Largest living organism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_organism


Oldest living organism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_organism


Strangely, yesterday I was interested to determine the largest city in the U.S. I had always thought it was L.A. Someone this weekend had said it was N.Y. So I checked and found that, indeed, NY was the larger, but its population was WAY lower than I would have thought. (Gauging population, again, is apparently a very realitive thing.) So then I did a search for "world's largest cities" and was shocked to find that I was fairly off the mark on these facts as well, at least sort of.

I've always thought that the largest cities in the world were Mexico City and Sao Paulo at around 20 million, and LA and Bejing close behind with 18. I suppose I was pretty close on the numbers, but that there are other areas, such as Seoul and Tokyo that are even bigger. Tokyo is estimated at 32 million!! Come on! How can that not be an astounding realization? We have created a city with 32 million people! There is a city in the world with 32 million people in it! I had never dreamed of such a thing. My world just grew a few clicks. My sense of wonder has been expanded.

As a side note, it was amazing to see the population densities of these cities. Some, like LA and NY are relatively low, but with sprawling size; where others, like Karachi, Calcutta, and Manilla, are compact and overflowing. Again, these arcane little tid-bits of data add a splattering of color to an otherwise blank map, if we havent' been to Calcutta.

I am growing to love wikipedia_