The Incredible Scale of Atoms

Atoms are the tiniest units of chemical elements.

British spelling.

Atoms are tiny and invisible to the naked eye, yet they are the fundamental building blocks of everything physical that we know, touch, and see.

You, me, the air we breathe, the water we drink, and everything that is matter are made up of these minuscule particles. It’s mind-boggling to think that something so small is responsible for the grand complexity of life and everything in the Universe.

Let’s start with the simplest atom of them all: the hydrogen atom. Picture this — at its core is a single proton, and orbiting around it is a lone electron. This tiny dance between the proton and electron is the foundation of all matter.

Now, imagine scaling that proton up to the size of a golf ball. Do you know how far the electron might be from the proton at that scale? A whopping 2 kilometres away, giving the atom a diameter of 4 kilometres.

That’s how much empty space exists within an atom. It’s a reminder that what seems solid or liquid to us is mostly empty space.

But not all atoms are as simple as hydrogen. Most atoms are made up of a mixture of protons, neutrons, and electrons, each configuration giving rise to the different elements we know of today.

These elements — like oxygen, carbon, hydrogen and over one hundred more— are the ingredients that make up everything, including the very fabric of our bodies.

Consider this: a typical human, let’s say someone weighing 70 kilograms or 154 pounds, is made up of roughly 7 octillion atoms. Yes, that’s a 7 followed by 27 zeros! It’s a number so huge it’s impossible to truly comprehend.

And yet, these atoms are constantly in motion, joining and leaving our bodies as we live and go about our daily lives.

When we break it down, 99% of our bodies are composed of just three types of atoms — oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen.

These atoms don’t just sit still; they’re active participants in the ongoing story of life. They bond with one another to form molecules, the building blocks of matter. Take water, for instance — a simple molecule made of one oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms. Or carbon dioxide, consisting of one carbon atom and two oxygen atoms.

Everything around us, everything we touch, feel, or smell — it’s all matter. And matter, by definition, takes up space and has mass.

The states of matter — solid, liquid, and gas — aren’t just abstract concepts; they’re the very essence of what makes the world around us dynamic and alive.

It’s the arrangement and density of these atoms that dictate whether something is hard as a rock, fluid like water, or as light as air.

But let’s take a step back. This whole story of atoms didn’t begin with us, or even on Earth. It began with the universe itself. Around 380,000 years after the Big Bang (the beginning of the Universe), the first atoms started to form, mostly hydrogen and helium. These atoms came to be not long after the creation of the universe and are still with us today.

Hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe, is a relic from that time, and it’s still everywhere, from the water in our oceans to the stars in the night sky.

Think about that for a moment. The atoms that make up our bodies have been around for billions of years, recycled through countless forms and processes.

When we die, our atoms don’t disappear; they return to the soil, the air, and maybe, one day, they’ll become part of another living being.

Atoms are forever. They are the universe’s way of preserving its history, its memory, through endless cycles of creation.

In a way, understanding atoms is understanding the essence of existence.

They may be tiny, but their impact is monumental. They are the silent architects of everything we know.

And while we can’t see them with our own eyes, their presence is undeniable, intricately woven into the essence of who we are.

Here are two of my short-form stories that are related to our world.

What Is Our Planet Doing?

Most of us go through life without a second thought regarding the world beneath our feet or the endless sky above us.

Colin Behrens Pixabay

We’re busy, caught up in the day-to-day things — work, family, the next meal etc — rarely stopping to think about where we are in the grand scheme of things.

Imagine standing on the equator, the widest part of the Earth. You feel no sensation of movement, but you’re actually moving at 1,600 kilometres or 995 miles per hour, thanks to the Earth’s daily spin. But that’s just a small part of the story.

Our planet is on a much bigger journey, racing around the Sun at 107,000 kilometres or 66,000 miles per hour. Each year, without fail, we complete this orbit around our local star, unaware that we’re zooming through space at such a speed.

But Earth isn’t travelling alone. Along with the other seven planets, we’re following the Sun as it orbits the centre of our galaxy, the Milky Way.

This journey around the galaxy — what scientists call a galactic year — is almost too vast to comprehend. It takes 230 million years to make just one orbit. And as we speed along this cosmic path, we’re moving at around 292,000 kilometres or 181,000 miles per hour.

And still, that’s not the end of our journey. Our entire galaxy, the Milky Way, with us and all its stars, planets, and countless other celestial objects, is hurtling through space at roughly 2.1 million kilometres or 1.3 million miles per hour.

We’re part of this cosmic ride, racing through space at unimaginable speeds, and yet, we go about our daily lives without even noticing.

It’s humbling, really. We’re just passengers, along for the ride, whether we realise it or not.

Our Time on Earth

The universe, as we understand it, burst into existence with a colossal explosion or expansion about 13.8 billion years ago.

Photo by Indra Projects on Unsplash

That moment marked the beginning of space and time — a concept so vast and ancient that it’s almost impossible for us to truly grasp.

In our tiny corner of this immense universe, we’ve organised a timescale that fits our lives neatly. A day is the time it takes for the Earth to spin once on its axis, a month is linked to the Moon’s orbit around our planet, and a year marks the Earth’s journey around the Sun. These measurements give structure to our lives.

We often speak of “yesterday”. But think about this: there was once a day so far back with no “yesterday.” The first day existed without the comfort of a past to reference. It’s a mind-bending thought, one that makes us realise just how much we rely on our carefully organised timescale.

How would we navigate our lives without it? How would we manage without these markers to guide us? It’s difficult to imagine, but it’s a reminder that our sense of time is something we’ve built to bring order to the chaos of the universe.

And with that, our journey through time and space continues — measured, predictable, and yet filled with mysteries we’re only just beginning to understand.

In the vast expanse of the universe, Earth may stand as a unique cradle of life.

Over 3.5 billion years ago, simple organisms emerged from primordial seas, setting in motion an extraordinary evolutionary journey for life.

[embed]The Universe Simplified The evolutionary path for life has been extremely long, but at last, we have arrived. Our highly developed brain has…medium.com