On Infinite Smallness
I just watched a pretty rad video of an electron microscope zooming in on a mint leaf and it got me thinking, as these things can do, on the idea of infinite largeness and smallness. The fact is, we have yet to discover the source of mass. No matter how far we zoom in, there’s just more empty space. Technically speaking, we should all be transparent if all that nothing weren’t somehow packed together so tightly.
So you have to wonder… if and when we find the God particle, the source of all our mass and all the mass in the dirt and the air and the sea and space, what will it be? What will it look like? Even electrons are made up of smaller particles orbiting still smaller particles. When you get down far enough — when we smash apart some atoms in the LHC — maybe we’ll find us? The fact is, the idea of these baby universes isn’t improbable. We just don’t know.
What’s fun is that you can take it in the other direction. Zoom out. Keep zooming out, outside of our solar system, outside of our galaxy, past the point where any particle or mass has reached out beyond the thrust of the big bang. I know there’s all sorts of theories on the shape of the universe and how this sort of zooming out might not even be possible, but what if we could escape our universe? Hawking has some pretty remarkable ideas on baby universes being created via black holes — particles spilling out into the void like ships sucked into a whirlpool — so why not?
What are we then? A God particle making up the nuclear of an electron bonded to an elemental molecule of such size it’s beyond measurement? Are we just particles in bigger us’s, who living on planets in solar systems in galaxies in universes that make up particles in even bigger us’s (and so on)? Or maybe we’re just a marble in a really giant alien’s marble game, as Trav pointed out on Facebook. Or maybe a snowglobe in Yakko Warner’s palm? (an aside: does anyone else find it remarkable that such a secular song was marketed for children? I feel like they’d never get away with that now).
Does the fact that any of this is possible keep anyone else up at night? How does anyone even have room for a deity in their worldview? I should maybe try to go to bed.
Comments
Have you not heard of the Rick Moranis principle? Wherein the empty space that makes up matter can be condensed, thereby leading to vastly cheaper shipping and totally awesome backyard adventures.
yep, i’ve spent many nights thinking about all of that. for years, a lot of it held basis behind my artwork, as well as a bunch of Mythos, Urban v. Nature & other hippietastic stuff. still does.
my cousin was a born-again Baptist for about 5 years but woke up one day and thought about the science behind everything. now he’s an athiest and talks to me endlessly about String Theory, Physics & when someone will invent a Holodeck.
i love it.
I can honestly say that one of the most disappointing pieces of news in the past few years was when I heard back in October of 07 that they had to shut down the LHC to re-calibrate it. The Higgs-Boson is like… right there. We can almost touch it. Or maybe we’ll find nothing at all. Just more empty space.
So cool!
The concept of infinity, period, absolutely boggles my mind. I would give anything to be able to travel to the edge of the universe just to see what’s on the other side. But then wouldn’t whatever is containing “the universe” still just be the universe?
The thing is, thinking about all of this has the opposite effect on me than it did on Mandy’s cousin. This shit is so mind boggling, so seemingly impossible to define or perceive, that it makes me think there is definitely something behind it. That something is probably just fucking with us though, and it definitely doesn’t give a shit if I go to church on Sunday.
Jay said:The concept of infinity, period, absolutely boggles my mind. I would give anything to be able to travel to the edge of the universe just to see what’s on the other side. But then wouldn’t whatever is containing “the universe” still just be the universe?
Do it, and follow it all the way back. Your heart will be on the other side of your chest and you’ll find a world where we call shirts pants and pants shirts.