Tyler Johnson, MDiv
Tyler is a pastor and a former NASA engineer. He loves to explore truth through God’s word and God’s works. He lives in Iowa with his wife and four children and spends what little free-time he has pondering the mysteries of light
Over the last week or so, the houses across the street from us have been demolished. A (de)construction crew has been systematically tearing the houses down, ripping out the trees, leveling the sheds and hauling all the debris away. It’s been a bit sad to watch the destruction, but one advantage that I’ve noticed is that our view to the east is now much more open. Behind all those houses and trees was the sunrise, which we are now able to enjoy more fully every clear morning. It turns out that the view beyond the houses is far more beautiful than the houses were.
In a similar fashion, I thought it would be fun to look below the surface of our reality and gaze at some of the beautiful mysteries that surround us. So follow me, if you will on a journey to the quantum realm.
The basic building blocks of matter are atoms. You probably already know this. Atoms are comprised of even more fundamental parts: protons, neutrons, and electrons. And even those can be broken down further, but we’ll just hang out at the atomic level for now. The basic shape of an atom is something like a solar system, with electrons orbiting around a nucleus of protons and neutrons. The number of protons, neutrons and electrons determine what element the atom is forming. All matter is made up of atoms, which means that everything that you are seeing or touching right now is made of atoms, including the screen you’re reading this on, your hands, your clothing. Again, you probably knew this already.
What I find amazing and mystifying about the atom is the scale. Normally, an atom is pictured something like it is above with the electrons fairly close to the nucleus. This is a necessary way to image an atom, but the scale is way off. To get a sense of how off it is, let’s imagine an atom the size of the earth. The electrons would orbit around a sphere the size of the earth, like cars zipping around the surface. What about the nucleus? It would be located at the center of the earth, but it would only about the size of a football stadium. Which means you wouldn’t even be able to see it from the ‘surface’. The scale of an atom is like a football stadium with electrons orbiting around it 4,000 miles away.
What mystifies me about this involves all the ‘stuff’ within that 4,000-mile radius. And by ‘stuff’ I mean ‘nothing’. Between the nucleus and electrons of every atom lies a (relatively) huge amount of empty space. Which means that every atom is 99.999% nothing. Which means that every piece of matter is 99.999% nothing. That includes the keyboard I’m typing on, the screen you are reading on, my hands that are typing and your eyes that are reading. The building you live in. The bridge that you drive over. The sidewalk you walk across. All of these things are mostly nothing.
To illustrate this another way, consider this. There a few billion humans alive on earth right now. If you removed all of the empty space within their atoms and reduced all humanity to simply electrons, protons, and neutrons with no space between them, then you would be left with an extremely dense piece of matter the size of a sugar cube. That’s right. Seven billion people can be reduced to the size of a sugar cube, if you simply take away the empty space in their atomic structure. Weird huh?
This is just one of the mysteries we find when we look below the surface of God’s creation. It is a reminder to me that studying God’s world invites us deeper into the mystery of God Himself. It also suggests to me that there is plenty of space within each of us for God to dwell and act. Just a thought.
More next week.