The L(-2) level:
The image alongside is a conceptual model of an atom. A heavy nucleus with electrons revolving around it.
Another image of an atom. This time a computer simulated model of a Gold atom.
Level (-1)
Zoom out of that atom image. Its highly unlikely that its in isolation. Its amidst an infinite number of similar bodies. A cluster of nucleus and electrons... a galaxy of atoms held together by an intricate network of forces... A moleucule!
Level (0)
Zoom out of Level (-1) and you come to the world as we define it in the physical spatial sense. I'll call it the level zero. Just because thats where we look from. So that becomes our mean on the numberline.
This is the most common image, our world.. yet an odd man out in all the other images in this writeup! Look at everything around. Its essentially a galaxy of molecules. Except for mankind's recent discoveries, it would have been hard to imagine the way these small particles makeup our world.
Level (1)
As you might have guessed, we zoom out and get the solar system. I am sure the remarkable similarity between the two images above must have impressed your mind too in early schooling days. In fact if we look at Jupiter and its moons, its again a atom-like structure! We could have called that as the Level 1 and the solar system as Level 2, but lets just keep it simple. The Solar system is Level 1. The main difference between the L1 and L(-1) systems is the huge difference in 'TIME'! An electron takes an infinitesimally small interval of time to complete its revolution and earth takes 365 days. "Time slows down as the size of your system/level increases. (Something like a huge creature is slow and has a larger lifecycle and tiny insects are faster and have a smaller lifecycle. You think you hit really fast when trying to kill a mosquito bothering you. But for that guy your hand appears to reach him in slow motion, and he flies away!)
Click on the graphic alongside (The outer solar system ~ source: cfa-www.harvard.edu/
of the comets monitored around our solar system:If you put a gun to my head and ask me to explain it, it would say its some chemical reaction in progress. These guys comming are something like electron (charged particles) and are attracted towards our solar system from a neighboring system that is weaker than ours. Or may be our system is acting like a catalyst or something (as the particles go back). The reaction is awfully slow compared to what we would expect in a atom system, just because the size of the system is huge.
If we were living on the electron, a planet that revolves around its sun at the speed of light, that is exactly how we would see a reaction! Imagine, when a reaction between two molecules takes place, in a few seconds, on that electron-earth, billions and billions of generations of alien life forms evolved and perished.
Level (2)
Its a Galaxy, consisting of thousands of systems like our solar system held by a delicate balance of forces like a stable molecular system, a substance!
This is the Andromeda galaxy which again looks like the solar system or an atom... a concentrated mass in the center and a distributed particle system revolving around it, held by gravitation forces or the intermolecular forces. So may be the inter-molecular forces are the same as gravity!
Its amazing how the analogies of the atom system and the galaxy system can help us to visualize the other. Comparing the two will give greater understanding of the eachother and maybe scientific breakthroughs!
Level (3)
Zoom out of the Galaxy and we should see pretty much everything, the Universe! Let me share with you an image of the Universe that was created by a computer simulation program claiming to explain the big bang theory ( Source: www-news.uchicago.edu/.../
Okay, I don't know much about the Big Bang Theory and how the simulation reinforces it; what amazes me is that this cube that is supposed to measure 280million light years in length, breadth and height, is actually just a small grain of sand in the Level 4 of the universe!!
The thought makes me feel small, helpless and our existence meaningless... Then I look round me and imagine the infinite galaxies looking at me through every small thing...
How Big are you?
1 comment:
On second thoughts, I think I'll call this the Sphere-in-Sphere theory. No matter where you are, you zoom in you see spheres, you zoom out, you see spheres...
Spheres are the basic building blocks, thats how the Universe manifests itself!
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