Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life

The next delivery is a telescope to a scientist at the Museum of Natural History. This man pawned the telescope when he was 15 to pay for a track uniform so he could get a scholarship to MIT, and he cries when he sees the telescope because it belonged to his grandfather. Lizzy agrees to tell him where they got it if he tells them why people exist. The man agrees and has them wait while he brings the telescope to his office. When he’s gone, Jeremy sees scale models of the Earth and the sun hanging from the ceiling. A sign proclaims that the Earth would fit inside the sun over a million times, and this information makes Jeremy feel small and insignificant.

When the man returns, he explains how the universe was formed from a single moment that unfolded into space, creating all the matter that would ever exist. Specifically for Earth, a number of chance factors all happened to occur in the precise sequence so that all species have the same DNA building blocks. In addition, humans couldn’t possibly exist without the millions of bacteria whose daily functions make complex life possible, meaning humans are not as powerful as they want to believe they are.