History of the Universe and Earth

[Froge]

The brain is a three pound mass you can hold in your hand that can conceive of a universe a hundred-billion light years across.

I find this quote interesting. In my opinion, while this seems impressive, it actually isn't. I would say that what the brain is good at is creating models. From sensory perception the brain realizes some very basic axioms: for example, that something has distance, something is solid, something has mass, etc. As we progress through life we create abstract models that are based on these axioms, such as math, physics, etc. And our understanding of the size of the universe is just part of the model our brain has created to comprehend distance.