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True atoms

Whilst some are reading a religious confection, others are reading some romance novel. You are reading this, and I suspect have on at least one occasion pondered about the universe, existentialism and the nature of things. You are quite noticeably not the first. We have documents proposing many poignant things. One such document describes the notion of division, breaking things down into ever smaller pieces. Would it be reasonable, the writer suggested, that we’re one to keep breaking something down you would get to a point where you can no longer break it down any further. You would have in your hand the smallest possible thing. That thing was given a name. The atom.

Time passed. The earth changed a little. Progress was made in the scientific arena and atoms were identified. Unbreakable pieces. Lots of different unbreakable pieces. They had different densities. Different levels of mass. They also had vastly different properties. One by one these atoms, which we call elements were isolated and examined. Hydrogen is at number one. It is the lightest, least dense - it has the least mass. These elements were put into a table. From carbon, xenon etc through to gold and uranium, they all had a place. The table had gaps though. Elements that we believed to exist but struggled to isolate. But isolate we did in due course. How did they build the table? How did they predict elements? I tell you. Simple numbers. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 etc. Each element is a quantum heavier. Whilst isotopes muddle the story a little, they too fail to defy the quantum policy. They too stick to the solid principle of being concordant with being firmly associated with whole integer round numbers. No fractions are found in nature. Only whole numbers.

We call atoms, atoms, yet they are not unbreakable. They are not the smallest entities that we have in this universe. We were too hasty calling them atoms. The philosopher who coined the term atom made it clear that atoms can’t be split. We did not understand at the time that atoms can be broken into smaller discrete pieces. These smaller pieces, sub-atomic particles have been given names, electrons, protons and neutrons. They too can be broken further into even smaller particles and have a variety of names such as muons, leptons and gluons etc. These too can be broken down into something that is indeed the smallest entity in our universe. This smallest entity can be referred to as the true atom.

True atoms congregate to form elementary particles. Elementary particles congregate to form sub-atomic particles. Sub-atomic particles congregate to form atoms, the elements. Atoms congregate in all manner of ways to give us millions of chemical compounds. Chemical compounds create biology. Extensive carbon chains wrapped in helical twists store lots of information.