You’re (Mostly) Empty Space
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Atoms make up everything. Even the nifty device you’re using to read this post is made up of atoms.
Yet you might not consider them unless you’re an omnist, like us. Then atoms might make it into a friendly conversation about opposites attracting, and then flirting—with science 🤓.
So, Let’s break down the atom and why you might want to care about it.
An atom’s nucleus is like a hard candy center that’s surrounded by a large plastic wrapper—which is like the electron cloud (containing the electrons, which are the negatively charged particles). Inside the nucleus are protons (positively charged particles).
So, if a proton were the size of an apple, the nearest electron (the size of a grain of salt) would be a little over a mile away (or 2 kilometers).
That means you are (and everything else) is mostly made up of space.
But it gets stranger. Inside the proton are even smaller particles called quarks (there are six types of quarks: up, down, charm, strange, bottom, and top). Scientists think that 99% of our body’s weight is the kinetic energy of quarks and what’s holding them together—gluon.
Just how many atoms make up your body (as an adult)?
7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (7 octillion) atoms.
Why the space?
So, you might have noticed you have a lot of atoms, which have a considerable amount of space.
Though, without that cushion, the strong force (and other forces) would squash us (~8 billion people) into something no bigger than a sugar cube.
And if you, individually, lost all your atomic space, your body would fit into a cube less than 1/500th of a centimeter on each side. That’s almost 16 times smaller than a well-fed ant.
So what’s inside that space?
Right now, scientists believe a lot is going on. That space is full of energy and dark matter. So although the space is empty, per se, it does have particles whizzing around all the time.
If we’re mostly space, then what animates us?
We’re going to take a detour for a second and make a few loose connections to universal law (you’ve been warned).
It’s all about energy. More specifically, the vibrations (or waves) your particles create (i.e., E = mc2).
So, under the right conditions, you can act like a wave. But let’s go over what might happen if you want to see yourself behave like quantum waves.
You'd have to reduce your atoms to their smallest form.
For example, it'd be like dissecting your atoms into protons and then into quarks (from atom to subatomic to fundamental)—this is akin to smashing a sugar cube into dust and then vaporizing it, effectively lowering the mass of each particle.
Or you could reduce the speed of your tiniest particles, which can be accomplished by lowering the temperature—either way—you might (we use the word might very loosely) act like a wave.
That’s because we’re made of elementary particles experiencing wave-particle duality; therefore, on the most miniature scale, our particles behave as a wave at any given moment (per se).
Each of us has an entirely different expression in the universe, from our passions to hairstyles.
Around the office, we call it our “energy signature.” That’s the stuff you find in space, and it’s like a unique galactic fingerprint. Finding it can be tricky, but just perusing omni for universal tidbits, you’re well on your way to uncovering your true cosmic self.