I listened to a speech given by Richard Dawkins last night on the strangeness of our universe and must say that it blew my mind. Here are couple of excerpts that I found interesting; give them a read and tell me if your jaw doesn’t drop.
1. Remember science class where we learned that an atom is a huge ball of empty space with a nucleus in the middle and electrons floating around it? Well, with that in mind, think about this:
“Science has taught us, against all intuition, that apparently solid things like crystals and rocks are almost entirely composed of empty space … the nucleus of an atom is a fly in the middle of a sports stadium. … So it would seem the hardest, solidest, densest rock is really almost entirely empty space, broken only by tiny particles so widely spaced they shouldn’t count. Why, then, do rocks look and feel solid and hard and impenetrable?”
2. We think that our bodies are made of completely solid matter (”flesh and blood”). But, this matter is always recreating itself. For example, the skin we have now is not the skin we had 5 years ago… it dies off and then regrows. This is true for our whole body. If this is true, were “we” really present 5 years ago?
“Think of an experience from your childhood; something you remember clearly. Something you can see, feel, maybe even smell as if you were really there–afterall, you really were there at the time, weren’t you (how else would you remember it)? But here is the bombshell: you weren’t there! Not a single atom that is in your body today was there when that event took place. Matter flows from place to place and momentarily comes together to be you. Whatever you are, therefore, you are not the stuff of which you are made. If that doesn’t make the hair stand up on the back of your neck, read it again until it does because it is important.”
Whoa; crazy or what? What this is saying is that if it is not matter that makes us and what we remember, what does? What other “thing” governs us? This is where complex stuff like quantum physics comes in. If you’re interested, you can watch Dawkin’s speech below:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6308228560462155344
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One Comment
Our universe is unbelieveble thing and I very proud that you pick up this guestion on your blog.