Nice thread... but don't forget the image of an atom is only theoretical. Although I'm about to read "For the first time ever, scientists watch an atom's electrons moving in real time" ... so this may be about to change.

Originally posted by Tripple_Helix
Hey OP, if you think that's interesting you will like this...

S+F.

Good show! I thought of this exact picture the second I read the OP.

It seems the more one focuses on the small, the more the image of the big tends to sharpen. They way they reflect each other amazes me.

Originally posted by Tripple_Helix
Hey OP, if you think that's interesting you will like this...

S+F.

that just blew my mind. 2nd.

I have always thought this and here's why. If we look under a microscope and see atoms, etc.. why would it be any different if we looked the other way with a telescope. My other thought is what could we possibly be a part of? A living thing? or a part of a great ocean or stream. Very interesting concept. I starred the post with the brain cell compared to the universe great post. There was a film which I have seen quite a few years ago on this topic I will search for it and post it here if I find it.

While I agree on the micro/macro perspective (call it fractal perspective if you like) the OP got this all wrong!
While our MAN MADE drawings and illustrations of an atom, might appear to look like a solar system, the measurement problem clearly tells us, that the particles are not solid when they move (are unobserved)!

So what an atom would look like if you could see it with your naked eye is more something like a sphere of bouncing energy! and the "skin" of the atom, would merely be the outermost electron(s) moving at such high velocity and in a wave form, that it appears to be surrounded by a "skin" (you could also call it a "shield" for a more illustrative metaphor)

But I totally dig the idea of a fractal perspective And I am sure that there are truths to be found in that!

I have always had a feeling there is some truth to this idea. Things just start to click when you think of the larger (or smaller) picture this way.

But when you think about the vastness of this idea it hurts the brain. When going towards the micro, it's hard to imagine that all the atoms that make up matter could be it's own "solar system". There are just too many of them. Or are there? If one truly accepts the idea of infinity then this is absolutely possible.

Think about this one for a minute: Size. We tend to look at everything from our perspective of size. Things that are too small, or too big, we do not see. They might as well be in another dimension. We are lucky enough to know that microbes exist because technology has allowed us to see them. But look around you now. Do you even comprehend that vast number of LIVING organisms that cover every inch of everything around you?

Now things get real interesting when we go the other direction - toward the macro. Where we become the microbes. If things can be infinitely small then they can be infinitely large.

Take an ant for example. Could an ant understand how large Earth is? Even if we were able to communicate with them, could an ant ever really see the earth the way we see it, or would the Earth be it's "Universe"? Is there anything an ant could do to actually see the whole earth, or would it have to resort to it being a theoretical idea? Even though we co-exist with ants it's like they live in their own world, or dimension.

Things that are closer to our size we tend to more closely understand and relate with. Things that are our size are in "Our world". It's interesting that we tend to think we are in control of things that are smaller than us in size, and we tend to respect and fear that which is larger than us. These are generalizations of course, but there is an obvious trend.

Now let me bring up one more thing: Time. There seems to be some correlation between size and time. it seems to be that the smaller something is, the faster it goes, and the larger something is the slower it goes.

Speed is derived from the time something travels between two points. But the distance between those two points is perceived differently depending on, you guessed it, size!

A fly zooming around the room seems to be going quite fast, or are we just going really slow? The answer: both. It just depends on your perspective, or shall we say frequency, or shall we say dimension. (Think, Bullet Time in The Matrix)The Earth is traveling tens of thousands of miles per hour, but it takes a year to circle the sun. It is fast or slow? An electron travels like the speed of light or something. Fast or slow? It depends on the size of your frame of reference.

I am not doing a good job of explaining it, but there is certainly something to this and the way it all interconnects. We think atoms are like the smallest particles, but then they are made up of electrons and quarks and bosons. (I know these smaller things are more like an energy than a particle, but stay with me here.) Who's to say there aren't smaller things that make up this components? We just can't see them because of our size.

Same in the macro. Our Earth might just be an electron of something much, much larger. There are things much larger than us, but we just can't see them due to our set size, or frequency.

Is that why so many people seem to subconsciously feel there is something "more"? Something spiritual, or godlike? We can't explain it but we can feel it. We could be considered gods of those things that are smaller than us. Is our God simply the something that is so much larger than us that we cannot see it, though we are a part of it?

I was just participating in another thread about prison planet and ( i don't know much about science) but was thinking if everythings made of atoms then everythings a prison as a atom is a container ? Does that sound crazy? Then i saw this thread it was like an instant click and also with the poster that said they dreamed about talking about atoms last night star for them . Thanks for the thread 1%