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Nested Universes (Atoms As Worlds; Worlds As Atoms)

Ermintruder

The greatest risk is to risk nothing at all...
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I think I've asked this before, yet maybe I haven't: a one-time classic sci-fi trope (I mean within the 'Amazing Stories' pulp picture-book/magazine broad canon) was the proposition that aside from absolute scale differences on astronomical terms, perhaps our entire universe is nothing but a tiny transient speck under the fingernail of someone, somewhere, contemplating their universe: ie the postulation that under all circumstances the macroscopic always recapitulates the microscopic.

(In many ways, a cosmological case rework of de Morgan's surpringly-underquoted 'Siphonaptera' (not heard by me heretofore this century until its inclusion below)

Big fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so, ad infinitum.
And the great fleas, themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on;
While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.

NOTE: This thematically distinct topic has been spun off from the Pioneer Plaques thread:

https://forums.forteana.org/index.p...nting-humans-to-aliens-pioneer-plaques.66685/
 
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I think I've asked this before, yet maybe I haven't: a one-time classic sci-fi trope (I mean within the 'Amazing Stories' pulp picture-book/magazine broad canon) was the proposition that aside from absolute scale differences on astronomical terms, perhaps our entire universe is nothing but a tiny transient speck under the fingernail of someone, somewhere, contemplating their universe: ie the postulation that under all circumstances the macroscopic always recapitulates the microscopic. ...

If this theme interests you, I strongly recommend tracking down and reading Henry Hasse's 1936 novelette "He Who Shrank."
 
Slightly related, it's been theorized that black holes are miniature universes.
There may even be a type of natural selection, where a universe with the right natural constants creates more black holes/descendants than the others.
 
I think I've asked this before, yet maybe I haven't: a one-time classic sci-fi trope (I mean within the 'Amazing Stories' pulp picture-book/magazine broad canon) was the proposition that aside from absolute scale differences on astronomical terms, perhaps our entire universe is nothing but a tiny transient speck under the fingernail of someone, somewhere, contemplating their universe: ie the postulation that under all circumstances the macroscopic always recapitulates the microscopic.

(In many ways, a cosmological case rework of de Morgan's surpringly-underquoted 'Siphonaptera' (not heard by me heretofore this century until its inclusion below)



NOTE: This thematically distinct topic has been spun off from the Pioneer Plaques thread:

https://forums.forteana.org/index.p...nting-humans-to-aliens-pioneer-plaques.66685/


It's obviously not as detailed as what you're thinking, but if I may mention something which your post reminded me of...

... when I was little I used to ponder whether we were all really small people on a world that much bigger people could see... like dolls in a doll-house, if you will. No idea where that thought came from, I was very young when I used to think it.


Slightly related, it's been theorized that black holes are miniature universes.
There may even be a type of natural selection, where a universe with the right natural constants creates more black holes/descendants than the others.

Ooh I like this idea.
 
Slightly related, it's been theorized that black holes are miniature universes.
There may even be a type of natural selection, where a universe with the right natural constants creates more black holes/descendants than the others.

How does the notion of black holes having almost infinite gravity at the centre fit into this theory ?
 
I guess the gravity bends spacetime untill it's bent 360 degrees and then the black hole buds off as a little pocket universe.
 
busey.gif
 
There's a Giant Mystery Hiding Inside Every Atom in the Universe

Source: Live Science online
Date: 02 January 2020

No one really knows what happens inside an atom. But two competing groups of scientists think they've figured it out. And both are racing to prove that their own vision is correct.

Here's what we know for sure: Electrons whiz around "orbitals" in an atom's outer shell. Then there's a whole lot of empty space. And then, right in the center of that space, there's a tiny nucleus — a dense knot of protons and neutrons that give the atom most of its mass. Those protons and neutrons cluster together, bound by what's called the strong force. And the numbers of those protons and neutrons determine whether the atom is iron or oxygen or xenon, and whether it's radioactive or stable.

Still, no one knows how those protons and neutrons (together known as nucleons) behave inside an atom.

https://www-livescience-com.cdn.amp...ry-of-proton-neutron-behavior-in-nucleus.html
 
Here's what we know for sure: Electrons whiz around "orbitals" in an atom's outer shell. Then there's a whole lot of empty space.

Please someone correct me if I am wrong but I thought that it was now accepted that Bohr's Planetary/Orbital model (electrons orbiting the nucleus like planets in orbit) was now obselete. His model only allows for smaller atoms and doens't scale up. I read that current thinking is that electrons pop in and out of existence within the shell - transporting from one point in space to another without traversing the space in-between.

If so, then the idea that each atom contains a solar system is just not applicable.
 
Please someone correct me if I am wrong but I thought that it was now accepted that Bohr's Planetary/Orbital model (electrons orbiting the nucleus like planets in orbit) was now obselete

This then apparently answers my key question, as to why we were taught in the '70s (that the macro matches the micro) and that this is now a discredited proposition.

So cosmology has been forced to accept the same sort of revisionist decalibration and deshrinement as originally-encapsulated by the neoclassic supposition that 'ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny': it just looks like it should be, but it isn't?


His model only allows for smaller atoms and doens't scale up.
I realise that this may be an oversimplification in order to preserve sanity & simplicity, but we both know this statement looks to be infinitely-flawed, ja?


I read that current thinking is that electrons pop in and out of existence within the shell - transporting from one point in space to another without traversing the space in-between
This is what intrigues and depresses me about theoreticity in science. My point is that theoretical physics (I suppose untestable natural philosophy) is too much of a terminus than a continuum. I/we want/need the answers, not the eternally-interim possible potentials (fascinating though they can be).
 
I realise that this may be an oversimplification in order to preserve sanity & simplicity, but we both know this statement looks to be infinitely-flawed, ja?

I didn't mean their physical size, I meant their size as in number of electrons. My knowledge ends there but from what I understand, the balance of his model only worked for atoms with one electron. When you increase the number of electrons then his orbital model didn't work.
 
Please someone correct me if I am wrong but I thought that it was now accepted that Bohr's Planetary/Orbital model (electrons orbiting the nucleus like planets in orbit) was now obselete.

If so, then the idea that each atom contains a solar system is just not applicable.

In effect, the simplistic "planetary" model has been obsolete among physicists since the 1920s or 1930s, when it became apparent electrons had to be interpreted as something more like probabilistic phenomena within a shell or region instead of a discrete object with a specifiable orbital path and location.

My guess is that this overly simplistic model persisted in popular contexts (including science education) because it reflected enough of the basic conceptual layout without requiring allusion to the many complications that rendered it unworkable.

NOTE: The term "orbital" doesn't refer to an "orbit" in the old / casual / planetary sense. It refers to the mathematical model defining a region or shell within which an electron is manifest. There are different categories of orbitals. See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_orbital
 
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