How far does it go?

April 15, 2008 4:01 AM

How far does it go?

Apologies for the ubiquitous title, but I thought it may catch your attention..

What I'm looking for is your opinions on a matter I've been thinking about quite a lot recently. We all know about atoms, and within them, neutrons and protons, and within them the mysterious quarks. But, beyond that, what do you think exists? Furthermore, is there ever an "end" or will one ever be discovered? I've always liked the theory that the structure of a common atom loosely mimics the layout of a solar system, with the orbiting planets representing the electrons whizzing around the central star (the neutrons and protons).

Like I said, any opinions or beliefs would be very important to me. Help me, hivemind!

posted by jhighmore to science & nature (8 comments total)

I've always liked the theory that the structure of a common atom loosely mimics the layout of a solar system, with the orbiting planets representing the electrons whizzing around the central star (the neutrons and protons).

That's called the Bohr Model of the atom and it is obsolete. Electrons are found in orbitals around the nucleus, unlike planets revolving around the sun.
posted by rancidchickn at 4:10 AM on April 15, 2008

There is a theory of further small particles called Preons that is becoming popular once again. It lost favor for a while as Superstring theory was popularized, and is now regaining favor as scientists are deciding that Superstring theory is bullshit.

Either way, quarks and leptons are the smallest particles actually identified today.

If the concept of Planck length and Planck time are true, then there is a limit to how small an elementary particle can be, so subdividing particles has to end at some point. Unless of course we start warping time and space. I don't know that I'll ever understand quantum physics.
posted by explosion at 4:49 AM on April 15, 2008

[a few comments removed - please stick to the non-chatfilter aspects of this?]
posted by jessamyn at 5:05 AM on April 15, 2008

any opinions or beliefs would be very important to me.

I personally believe that for all intents and purposes, its infinite on either end of the scale (going "smaller" or going "bigger" - solar system, galaxies, universe, etc. - which, if you're on an infinite scale, are actually really relative terms). It might be an inaccurate belief, but I think its safe to say I won't be proven wrong for a good long while, and in the meantime, its fun to consider the implications.

I think it was Asimov who speculated on the possibility of infinite smallness (that's not the right term, but I can't think of what is at the moment) and kind of sparked that whole twilight-zonish fascination with universes inside the smallest elements.

There's a good chapter for the layperson in Bryson's A Brief History of Nearly Everything on this topic.
posted by allkindsoftime at 5:12 AM on April 15, 2008

some folks believe it's turtles all the way down

others think that the further in you go, the bigger it gets
posted by jammy at 5:53 AM on April 15, 2008

A model is just an abstract way of looking at things to make things easier to comprehend. As such they are not generally spot-on realistic. On the scale of atoms, the laws of physics itself does not scale to a similar way as the solar system. Assuming you could be the same scale on an electron as you are on earth, things would not look the same or act the same. It would be hard to comprehend what it would be like even if you could see it which is why we come up with models.
posted by JJ86 at 6:04 AM on April 15, 2008

There are going to be similarities between galaxies, solar systems and even some models of atoms (which are wrong but that's not exactly my point) because they do all obey similar laws of physics (and in a lot of cases exactly the same ones). The differences are as important as the similarities though.

For the things you mention - the conservation of angular momentum lands you with lots of spinny discy things in nature, and similarities in the underlying physics lead to very similar objects at different scales (I'm thinking especially of quasars and microquasars for example, but while they're a good example they're not the only one).

Looking on ever smaller scales becomes difficult as we just can't build a big enough atom smasher. Looking on ever bigger scales is difficult as the universe has a finite age, and we can't see far enough as a result. But we do think as we look on larger scales the universe becomes smoother and smoother, and it would be surprising to find sudden structure appearing as we went further out. Unfortunately for anyone liking surprises, I don't know of any good way we could ever find out about anything like that.

Really, I guess you're wondering if we could be living in something like a fractal, with similar structure on all scales, and fractal distributions of matter have been proposed cosmologically at least. Unfortunately, fractal distributions of matter are a bit difficult to work out the gravitational forces between, so without really good reasons to think that way, people generally don't try much.
posted by edd at 6:20 AM on April 15, 2008

Well, there's M-theory.
posted by Green Eyed Monster at 6:24 AM on April 15, 2008