The Eye of the Snail

Imagine the Worlds Within

Are there submicroscopic worlds within everything we know – and are we submicroscopic within some larger universe?

When I was young, I was enamored with the idea of multiple, or even infinite levels of Universe. I probably got the idea from Disneyland’s Adventure Thru Inner Space. I liked the idea that solar systems or galaxies or maybe whole universes might exist within atoms (See: Conceiving the Inconceivable). But I also allowed that to another larger level, we might be the microscopic universe.

My standard joke was always that maybe we are in the eye of an enormous snail that lives in a larger universe. I used to play with snails, and was fascinated at how if you touched a snail’s eye stalk it would retract, and then extend outward again. The eye and nerve would follow the extension but lag behind a bit (see A snail’s eye).

I thought it was interesting that the writers of Men In Black had a similar idea that they used for the ending of the first movie. Giant alien creatures are playing marbles with galaxies or universes within them, including us.

It turns out that the snail’s eye stalk was a fitting choice. Our “known” part of our universe is expanding.  A part of a universe that is expanding in a more linear shape could be an eye stalk that is extending outward. Considering what we think we know about the movements of atoms and subatomic particles, the time scales could be much different. Something that takes place in seconds or minutes in a larger universe might be millions or billions of years in a much smaller universe. So that eye stalk extension might take place over millions of years for tiny worlds within it.

But there are lots of other phenomena that might fit the bill. Maybe our universe is a bucket of water that was just dumped on the floor of some god-scale house. Maybe we are part of a balloon being inflated. Or, maybe we are something exploding! That might fit with the “Big Bang” theory.

Imagine worlds within the submicroscopic realm, all around and in us. Every atom, maybe every subatomic particle contains its own galaxies.

Now, imagine the worlds within an ice cube in a pan. The molecules and atoms are locked into a crystal structure. That could be seen as a static universe (not expanding). Melt that ice cube and the stars and galaxies are free to move about; the universe can expand outward into the pan. If you further heat it to a gas, the expansion is greater and faster, and 3-dimensional.

What about worlds within electric circuits? As we understand it, electrons are passed from one atom to another at about the speed of a fast ant. So what might that look like from inside? Is it like tiny planets ripped from their sun and sent on a galactic trip from one solar system to another?

What might you do differently if you knew that everything you do affects living things in tiny worlds – every snail or fly we smash, every time we pop a balloon, everything we eat, every time we make a fire or start a car, every time we turn on a faucet or flush a toilet? Now, it’s not like we’re killing the living things or destroying their planets or solar systems or galaxies. Killing or smashing things in our own world does not destroy the atoms that make them up.

Well, maybe there is one exception. What happens to galaxies or universes that might be targets in our atomic colliders? Are they ripped apart? Maybe we need to stop smashing atoms, just in case … in case someone’s watching…

Telescope image of a nebula commonly known as "The Eye of God."
Composite image of Helix Nebula (also known as “The Eye of God”) taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys aboard NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and the Mosaic II Camera on the 4-meter telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile.

Comic sequences by Ken Piper using StoryboardThat (storyboardthat.com).

Featured image by Сколько минут at nixette.livejournal.com. Photographer has modified the eyes for humorous effect.

Shaggy and Emily

A Story of Love and Jealosy

Shaggy coveted Kathy’s lap. One day Gus was occupying her spot. She glowered jealously. From that day on, she tormented him.

Shaggy growled fiercely whenever the dog came near her food. Tiny, but powerful – she was but a kitten.

Emily had picked her from the litter of Lucy, who belonged to the teacher across the street. (Emily had been in her class part of one year.)

That was about May of 2000 as Emily recalls. Emily was in fifth grade.

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Shaggy and Lucy

Lucy spent more time at our house than at her owner’s. This benefited Shaggy, who would nurse from her mother long after the other kittens had been given away.

Shaggy shared her life with her mother and the two other cats that called our house theirs.

That is, until Lucy was killed by the Pit Bull from around the corner up the street. Lucy is buried in our front yard.

Shaggy coveted Kathy’s lap. One day Gus was occupying her spot. She glowered jealously. From that day on, she tormented him.

Shaggy always got along with Fang (really Pumpkin) the big male cat. She hated Gus, the piano player, who was always sickly – or maybe she just enjoyed having power over him.

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Emily and George

Later George arrived, and found acceptance by her. Laurel’s Gus was the only hated one.

Shaggy’s greatest enjoyment was being allowed to go out on the front step to roll on the warm concrete. A minute or two and she came back in; she was not a wanderer.

Fang always wandered, and would keep finding new places to hide when I went to bring him in at night. He died at home while Emily was graduating from High School.

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George and Shaggy

Gus died; Laurel cried. I don’t remember when, in the order of things.

Emily moved out after she got her teaching job, and took George with her. She had picked Shaggy, but Shaggy had picked Kathy as her person.

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Tiger Lily

George was replaced at our house by Tiger Lily. Tiger Lily was to be Sophie’s cat at her grandparents’ house. But she chose me as her person.

Shaggy was jealous of the attention that Tiger Lily got and would fight with her. Eventually she became confined in the upstairs Master Bedroom. Life was smaller there, but she could occasionally go out on the balcony to roll.

Shaggy was not bothered by water like many cats. She liked to play with the water if it was dripping from the bathtub faucet. Sometimes she would sit by the faucet waiting for drips that were not to come. She preferred water from the tub or sink faucets over that in a bowl.

Shaggy had a regular nighttime routine. She liked to lie on Kathy. I was her second favorite after Kathy, but eventually she figured out that I didn’t move around as much. Lately, she would start by Kathy’s head, then move to lying on me, and by morning was at the corner of the bed by my feet.

We had a scare a couple of years ago when Shaggy stopped eating. The problem was digestive and the vet sorted it out. We switched her from dry food to canned food. Once she got meaty-treaty, she never took another bite of her dry food.

Shaggy would complain that she was starving; no one ever fed her. She drank more water than any other cat I had known. But she continued to thrive, or so it seemed.

Slowly she lost weight, as old cats often do. She still jumped up on the counter and wanted water from the faucet.

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Shaggy

Shaggy stopped eating. I took her to the vet hoping it was a similar problem as before. I brought her home and waited for the results of tests.

It was not the same as before. The excessive water drinking could have been a clue, had we known. We took her to the vet one last time.

Emily has been teaching now for 7 1/2 years. Shaggy is buried in our front yard close to her mother and to her favorite rolley-rolley spot.