“The atoms come into my brain, dance a dance, and then go out — there are always new atoms, but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday.” -Richard Feynman
It took 13.8 billion years of cosmic evolution, billions of years of biological evolution and astronomical numbers of events unfolding exactly as they have to give rise to you and me. And yet, here we are, collections of tens of trillions of cells and some 10^28 atoms.
Image credit: Ed Uthman.
Yet even though we don't often think of it, each one of those atoms has its own, unique cosmic story. It's too great a story to tell for all of them, so here's the humble story of just one of them. The only thing special about it is that it just happens to be one of the ones in your body right now.
Image credit: Youngester of http://technicalstudies.youngester.com/.
Go and find out the story of one of the smallest parts of you, and perhaps you'll recognize it as a story we may all have in common!
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Slightly OT but this reminds me of a statistics problem (used in general to show our abysmal intuitions when it comes to statistics): In 44 BC, Julius Caesar is stabbed, and with his dying breath says "et tu, Brute?" Now, take a deep breath. Assuming for this toy example that molecules in the atmosphere stay in the atmosphere and it's just a question of mixing, what is the statistical chance that the breath you just took contains one of the molecules that Julius Caesar breathed out with his dying breath? For simplicity, let's just consider order of magnitude jumps.
A) >99.9%
B) 10%-99.8%
C) 1%-10%
D) 0.1%-1%
E) < 0.1%
Perfect answer to "Where did I come from mommy?"
Well Done Ethan!
Dear Ethan,
thank you for your post. I recommend to everybody the reading of a short story by the Italian writer and scientist Primo Levi, 'Carbon', if you already do not know about it.
The concept is the same of the post, but written in a wonderful Italian prose. It is considered the best example in Italy of merging of science and art in literature. You can read an English translation here:
http://www.transitionnetwork.org/files/CarbonStoryByPrimoLevi.pdf
And listen to the story narrated in English here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRmQ6ySjwRs
Thanks, Andrea
Oh and as you mention our atoms all are replaced every 6 years or so......this just shows that we really nothing more than patterns of information. Life is a constant battle to maintain organization (information) against the forces of entropy. :)