If we had to classify our understanding of the known Universe, it would have to start at the atom. It’s the smallest observable matter of life. Everything is made of it. Outside of radiation and some sub particle energies, we know it exists. It was theorized about a long time ago. 400 BC to be more exact. His name was Democritus. He was also the founder of Democracy. Demos meaning citizen, and kratos meaning power of rule.
His theory revolved around the concept of splitting something in two until you can’t split it anymore. It was a revolutionary idea and not much has changed since. He was, of course, referring to molecules more or less, but the next step down would be the atom. A single form of energy with physical properties.
Everything in the known Universe is made of these little suckers. How many of them? Well, quite a lot. In fact, 7×10^27. That’s 7 followed by 27 zeros. It’s a number that even when you see it, you can’t comprehend its size. And that’s just in a human. There’s a lot of them.
Imagine a full stadium. Let’s say that stadium has 100,000 seats in it. Now let’s put 10 stadiums together, side by side. Imagine looking down that street and how far it would go if the stadiums were aligned next to each other. How long down the street you’d have to look to see the end of the 10 of them. And that’s just 1 million seats. Now, imagine 7 of those streets with stadiums left and right. That’s 7 million seats. Of course we’d have to travel a bit to see all of the seats, but let’s say there’s a high rise apartment next to them. You get on the top floor, and as far as the eye can see, you see 70 stadiums aligned in a 7×10 grid. And that’s just 7 million seats. You can barely make out the individual seats.
So you pick out one seat, and realize that it’s 1 of 7 million seats. Now, a million only has 6 zeros, so what you’re looking at is a really tiny representation of the bigger picture. We have 21 more zeros to go. Imagine that there are more stadiums layered on top. Ten layers of stadiums. You can probably only see the first 5 layers before you lose them to distance. And that’s just 7 billion seats. We still have 20 more zeros to go. Not 20 more stadiums, or 20 more layers, but 20 more zeros. For each zero, you multiply what you have by another 10 times.
We, humans, have an incredible amount of atoms in us. Now, to show the comparison of only one hydrogen atom in relation to a football field. Imagine an average sized pea in the middle of the field. Well, there’s your nucleus, or proton. Yeah, it’s really that small. Shrink the stadium down to one seat to get a perspective on our original model, and you start go get an idea of how large we are in comparison to atoms, protons, and even electrons. Now, electrons are even smaller than that pea. So much smaller in fact that in our original model, no matter how close you got to the “seat”, you would never see it with your naked eye. And the electron is not really in a particle state, but more like a cloud. Going back to the pea sized model for the nucleus, imagine a flea moving around the stadium at speeds faster than The Flash. It would create a sort of a “cloud” of energy. A sort of a blurry cloud. All thanks to one electron just spinning around that pea.
Let’s imagine that all those atoms are vibrating around in our bodies. All of the reactions that happen, constantly, are happening right now in your body. You’re able to move your eyes because of the stability of those atoms in your eye muscle, and the electrons travelling around through your nerves. It’s not a miracle that you’re alive. It’s pure knowledge.
I’m writing this article not because I want to show how much better science is than just basic belief, but because all this knowledge exists, right now. It’s up to us to now only learn it, but understand it. Do you truly understand that you’re made of these little balls of energy? Can you feel them moving around your body? Can you sense their vibrations? You must reach a certain level of awareness to be able to truly understand yourself, as the Universe. It won’t happen overnight. It barely took us several years to just understand that there’s these little organisms floating around us that give us life. Your guts are filled with bacteria that break down food. There are microbes in your mouth, right now, that help you with digestion and keep your teeth clean. As disgusting as it sounds, it’s real, but the good thing is that nothing has changed. Just your perception and understanding of it. Those bacteria have always been there. You’re just becoming more aware of them.
Awareness is a good thing. The more you know about your own body, the better you can treat it. The more you understand to stay away from sweets, and the more you want to brush your teeth. So, in the end, awareness of these things is a very good thing, because the more you know about your physical existence, the better you can treat yourself to try to extend your life as much as you can so you can pass down more knowledge to the young generations. The Universe thanks you for it. Considering that you are the Universe, you basically just thanked yourself by doing something nice for yourself.
Now it’s starting to make more sense. Now you’re realizing the level of awareness that you must reach. Be aware of your atoms, and they will in turn help you out, because you treat them better.
It’s as if a mythical god was aware of its subjects. The subjects would never comprehend their god, and most likely never become aware of a god existing for them, but you, in essence, are their god. You are your atoms’ god. It’s incredible when you think of it this way, but it’s real. It’s very real to its core.
