People from ancient civilizations would gaze up at the night sky and see a whole, finite Universe, probably with the Earth at the centre. Today we look up and see a tiny fraction of the stars from a small corner of our galaxy, as well as smudges of light coming from billions of stars in unimaginably distant galaxies.

Over the last few hundred years, the place of the human race in the Universe has grown smaller and smaller. Add modern Cosmological theories such as parallel, infinite and cyclical Universes to the mix and the scale of the Earth and mankind dwindles to the infinitesimal.

As Neil, the archetypal hippie from 'The Young Ones', once said, "If the World was an orange, it would be like, too small..", or, just maybe, a bit too big.