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From Before the Big-Bang to Brain and Beyond
From Before the Big-Bang to Brain and Beyond
Referring back to the page What If, let us think about 'of what is every thing made?' By 'thing' we must consider every thing: inanimate things and animate things, solids, fluids, gaseous matter; all forms of living beings - fish, birds and animals, including humans.
Is this too difficult to comprehend - too many materials to consider, the list would be endless? This may be true but we can summarize the answer since we know that all materials comprise of molecules. So the answer to our question of "Of what is everything made?" could be simply 'molecules'. There are, of course, thousands of molecules, so our answer is not yet sufficiently detailed. Let us look then at what a molecule comprises. The many varieties of molecule are created from different combinations of atoms. There are only 92 natural elements (atoms) so we have reduced the problem to 92 possible elements from which every 'normal' material can be made. I say normal because there are another 10 man-made elements. There are also over 600 isotopes, which are atoms that have been manipulated by adding or taking away neutrons, but let's not worry about them because all these variations become irrelevant. Having reduced our incomprehensible number of options down to a hundred or so, we need to ask ourselves 'of what atoms are made?'. Now we are getting to the crux of the matter. An atom basically consists of a nucleus (of protons and neutrons) surrounded by electrons. We might stop there and say that the answer to "of what is every thing made?" has been reduced to protons, neutrons and electrons but that still leaves the question as to 'of what are they are made?' Scientists have discovered that an electron sometimes acts as a particle (like a minute grain of sand) but it can also act as a wave (an electromagnetic wave). If we assume it is a tiny particle, we would then need to know of what that is made - and so on, ad infinitum. However, if we consider that maybe it is an electromagnetic wave then we discover that to orbit the nucleus, it must be a spherical wave. On the other hand, if it is free of a nucleus, then it could still be a spherical wave - a tiny ball, just like a particle, having mass. What is more, if it didn't form a sphere then it would be like a loose piece of string - a photon (light particle), having no mass. If we now turn our attention to the proton and the neutron we can consider that they too are spherical electromagnetic waves but of a much higher frequency, concentrating their energy into a much smaller ball. Their equivalent to the photon of light would be the harmful gamma rays which are emitted when a nucleus is smashed. So then just by applying a bit of mental logic and some basic knowledge of sub-atomic particles, we have arrived at the conclusion that everything is made of waves - electromagnetic waves. A word of caution - these are my thoughts, my explanation of the nature of matter. Readers should think it through for themselves. |