Category: Armchair Philosopher

What good is a PhD if you can’t philosophize?

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.

Conceiving the Inconceivable

The more we ask “What are we made of?” the more we are faced with the inescapable conclusion that we are made of mostly nothing.

Ken Piper

The space within us

A while back my son commented that we are 98 percent water. I replied that really we are almost 100 percent nothing – that is, if you consider the space between molecules, and then at the atomic level, between the nucleus and electrons. Most of the space is, well, space ­– and that which is not?

From dust were ye made and dust ye shall be…1

Those Old Testament writers were onto something – in their day, dust was the smallest thing they could see, so everything must be made of dust. When I was a child, the prevailing thought was that protons, neutrons and electrons were the fundamental particles that made up everything else.

Now, particle physicists have determined that at least protons and neutrons are made up of smaller particles (quarks, neutrinos, leptons, photons and so forth). These and electrons are now considered the elemental or fundamental particles. Hmm…but what are they made of?

In our experience, everything is made up of something else, something smaller – and, of course, a lot of space in between.

The old Disneyland ride “Adventure Thru Inner Space” explored the idea that going to the very small revealed something similar to going to the very large – to outer space, stars, and constellations. When you got to atomic size, it was like you were in outer space, surrounded by star-like points of light.

The details may be wrong, but still, there remains the question: Are there really elemental particles? There must be, but there can’t be.

If we understand that everything is made of something, we are stuck with the unavoidable conclusion that there is no smallest thing.

This is a paradox of infinity. And really, this is a manifestation of our limited ability to comprehend the infinite or, in this case, the infinitesimal.

The outer limits – Outside outer space

Consider the other extreme: The size of the universe. If you ask an astrophysicist “How big is the universe?” you might get something like: “Well the big bang was 13.8 billion years ago, and we can see light from that time, but because of inflation, what we can see is really at least 92 billion light years in diameter, yada yada yada…” (and that’s just the part we can observe). OK, so it is really big!

But if you can put a number on it, you can conceptually surround it with a box. Then you can ask, “What is outside of that box?” There at least has to be “empty” space. There is certainly enough of that for lots of other “universes.”

If you include empty space (and “dark matter”) as well as stars, galaxies, dust clouds and all the things we can observe, then it must be infinite. But, where does all that end?

On the one hand, we can’t conceive of it being without limit; on the other hand, we can’t define or even imagine an end to it. We cannot adequately comprehend this. It must be infinite. It can’t be, but it must be. This too is a paradox of infinity.

The problem of time (besides not having enough of it)

Now consider time. In our experience everything must have a beginning and an end. We know that things happened before we were born, of course, and we assume that things will happen after we are gone. As a geologist, I look at the bigger picture, at the billions of years the Earth has been around.

The Earth had to come from somewhere, from something that existed before it. But, there is always the nagging question of what was before. It’s kind of like the game we played as children, asking “Why?” of our parents or others, then following their answer with another “Why?” again and again until they became frustrated and said “Just because!”

Time, time, time, see what’s become of me…2

Some will tell you that the “Big Bang” was the beginning of time. OK, what was before, and what and where did everything come from? If it was an energy equivalent of mass, the question is still the same.

If everything ends in a colossal big hole, then what is after? There must be a beginning and an end, because everything we know of begins and ends, but there can’t be.

Inconceivable! 3

We simply cannot comprehend things infinite. Perhaps we are captives of our experiences; perhaps it is just the limits of our mortal brains. Perhaps it is because time and space are both divine creations and we, as creations, are constrained within them.

I am the alpha and the omega 4

What are your thoughts on all of this? Comment below or write to me at ken@kennethpiper.com.

  1. Lyrics from Sparrow, by Simon and Garfunkel, from Genesis 3:19.
  2. Lyrics from A Hazy Shade of Winter, by Simon and Garfunkel.
  3. “I do not think he knows what that means” – Inigo Montoya in Princess Bride.
  4. Book of Revelation (verses 1:8, 21:6, and 22:13).

Featured image: Cover for Infinitesimal, an online mix of music “for when you feel indescribably small in an immense universe” by gabimarie