MadSci Network: Astronomy
Query:

Re: Are our solar systems little atoms in a bigger universe?

Date: Fri Nov 30 08:48:11 2007
Posted By: Dan Berger, Faculty Chemistry/Science, Bluffton University
Area of science: Astronomy
ID: 1195795337.As
Message:

Dear Maddy,

Actually, atoms don't "look like tiny solar systems." Not much at all. They aren't held together by gravity, and they don't have small, solid bodies circling a large center. Instead they have really fuzzy, smeared-out bodies (electrons) that exist as standing waves in the atom, like vibrations on a drumhead.

maybe the little atoms that make up everything here are tiny little worlds, maybe with living things. And maybe we are just an atom on a giant clover

Really, I suppose there's no particular reason to say that it can't be true -- but it would have to be supernatural. The scientific tests we can make say that it's probably not true that atoms are little solar systems; and as for the other direction, we can't really check that at all.

Sorry!

Dan Berger


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