The World of Atoms

The Beginnings of the Discovery of Atoms

It was the ancient Greek scientists who first advanced the idea that atoms are the fundamental elements of nature. Democritus thought of them as indivisible and indestructible. But the existence of atoms could not yet be proven during his time because there were still no powerful instruments that could examine their inner structure and behavior.

We are lucky, we have these appropriate instruments already. The world’s most powerful and the largest is at CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire) located in Geneva, Switzerland. Based on the information these instruments are giving us continuously, what we know of atoms can now be summarized as follows:

1. Atoms are composed of electrons, protons, and neutrons;
2. Atoms are so structured that they behave in such a way that electrons, for example, stay in their respective “orbitals”, while protons and neutrons stay together at the center as the nucleus;
3. At their fundamental levels, atoms consist of still tinnier particle;
4. The behavior of atoms is governed by quantum forces (also called “laws”) to ensure that electrons do not collide with each other and bumped into the nucleus; and
5. Atoms exists in pairs that are opposite to each other, broadly, called matter and antimatter.

The World of Atoms: Portal to the Divine Spirit

November 10, 2021

The world of atoms is the realm of the tiny and the tinniest. Today, it is widely accepted that one atom is 99.00% empty space. Yet, it houses hundreds, even thousands, of particles, many of which still remained to be discovered and named.

The Chinese sage Lao Tsu appears to have already described the world of atoms: “One of deep virtue cherishes the subtle essence of the universe. The subtle essence of the universe is elusive and evasive, it unveils itself as images and forms. Evasive and elusive, it discloses itself as indefinable substance. Shadowy and indistinct, it reveals itself as impalpable subtle essence. This essence is so subtle, and yet so real.”

But, where did the 1% originate? David Bohm says that it came from the higher dimension of existence, described as the realm of the Unmanifested, Unrevealed, Uncreated, Unborn, Unoriginated, and Undying, attributes that bear close resemblance to the God of Religion. Indeed, some particles like electrons and photons live millions and billions of years, immortal, eternal, and infinite by human standards.

Ervin Laszlo says that in the 1900, you could not have believed that science has a religious faith and be logically consistent. But today, you can believe in science and have a spiritual view of the world. The basis of the physical world is metaphysical.

It is metaphysical and spiritual because deep down in the atomic world, particles have no more mass, size, and weight. “Elementary particles are no longer real in the same sense as objects of daily life, trees of stones", quips Werner Heisenberg.

Dean Radin says that: “deep down into the nature of matter, everything we know about the everyday world dissolves. There are no objects anymore … there’s no locality anymore, there’s no time anymore."

Subatomic particles transcend time and space. They can travel at light speed, even faster, that it's almost impossible to locate where they are at any moment in time. They are omnipresent anytime everywhere. They can appear and disappear at will and be conscious of what we they are doing.

What is even stranger than fiction is that what is happening in the world of elementary particles is also happening in the large-scale structures—planets, moons, suns, stars, galaxies, and so on.

This is because we all came from atoms that erupted from the singularity during the Big Bang, 13.7 billions years ago. Called supernova, this momentous cosmic event in our history produced the strings that form the quarks, leptons, neutrons, protons that finally gave birth to the Primal Atoms.

Atoms then combined with other atoms to form molecules and produce lighter elements like hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen then heavier elements as they now appear in the famous Periodic Table of Chemical Elements.

Atoms and molecules constitute the forces of nature—air, fire, element, water, atmosphere, rivers, trees, animals, and other subhuman species. They are within us—in our body, brain, mind, in our thoughts, feelings and actions, as well as in our conscious, subconscious, unconscious minds.

Subatomic particles can defy physical laws for they can quantum jump, entangle with each other, relay instantaneous transfer of communication, teleport, project themselves astrally, and many other phenomena we consider paranormal.

Strange events in the atomic world, like passing through a wall without destroying its original structure can also be done by us humans. We can also pass through a mountain without going up and rolling down to reach the other side, by simply passing through the mountain, as if tunneling through it, but without destroying its structure and land on the other side and even go back at will.

Believe it or not. Science does not care whether people believe or not in this ghostly behavior of particles. But it says it is a common and normal phenomenon in the world of subatomic particles.

From the perspective of science, if humans cannot replicate the events happening in the atomic world, we can only be too conditioned by others to believe we can’t do wall penetration. Or perhaps, our body is just too physically tied down to the material level of existence.

Yet, how do we explain saints, sages, mystics, and yogis who have been seen in other parts of the world without leaving their physical body and without interrupting the things they are doing?

Yes, we human species are composed of physical and spiritual elements. Philosophers would say we are embodied spirits or bodies animated by the force and power of the spirit within us.

Both contemporary science and religion contend that the spirit enters the physical realm in order to experience what it means to live in a physical body, in the same manner that the body allows itself to be soaked by the spirit in order to learn what it means to live as a spirit.

Who is learning more from whom depends on the way we respond on the things and events happening around us today, especially during this time of intensifying global pandemic. It depends on how we relate to our families, friends, neighbors, office mates, inferiors, and superiors, our subordinates and leaders, whether in government, politics, or religion.

Indeed, the world of atoms is a wave of relationships, possibilities, potentialities and probabilities for us to learn, unlearn, and learn some more. Our respond to them can make or unmake us.

The World of Atoms

Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D. – November 9, 2021

There are strange things happening in the world of atoms. Here’s a list of topics which we discuss in class.

(a) The Existence of Opposites

(b) The Principle of Complementarity

(c) Creation-Annihilation-Creation

(d) The Dual Nature of Atoms as both Particle and Wave

(e) The Pilot Wave

(f) The Observer Effect and the Wave Function Collapse

(g) The World of Infinite Possibilities and Potentialities

(h) The Uncertainty Principle

(i) Quantum Jump, quantum entanglement, instantaneous transfer of communication, quantum teleportation, non-locality, timelessness

(j) String theory, M theory, parallel universes

(k) The Holographic Universe.

Insights from a Buddhist Guru

But Atoms Are After All Divisible

 May 28, 2020

In the late 19th century, Thomson and Rutherford’s pioneering work leads several other scientists to the discovery more subatomic particles. In the midst of this finding, the atom comes to be known to consist of a tiny but heavy, positively-charged center nucleus surrounded by a cloud of lightweight negatively-charged particles called electrons. Soon after, in 1914, the protons are recognized as a particle. However, neutrons, a companion of protons, are discovered only much later in 1932. In the early 1930s, only three atomic particles are known—electrons, protons, and neutrons; this number increases to 18 in 1955. By the end of the 20th century, because of the continuous smashing of atoms, there are already over 200 subatomic particles known (Fritjof Capra, 2000:75). 

As physicists continue to divide atoms and subatomic particles, more baffling and puzzling phenomena begin to be noticed. In 1895, Wilhelm Roentgen (1845-1923) discovers radioactive substances emitted by the atom, which he called x-rays, so termed after the mathematical symbol (x) for an unknown quantity. In 1912, Max von Laue (1879-1960) shows in his experiments that x-rays are “electromagnetic waves,” which he then uses to study the arrangements of atoms in crystals. Radioactivity is further investigated by Marie Currie (1867-1934) and Pierre Curie (1859-1806) and for their efforts they were awarded Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903. Then, two other radioactive decays are discovered in 1908 by Lord Ernest Rutherford, who receives the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this work. These radioactive substances are the so-called alpha and beta radiations, which turned out to be “tiny high-speed projectiles.” Rutherford uses these alpha particles in 1911 to study the composite nature, operations, and structure of the atom. When Rutherford subjects atoms to an intense bombardment with these alpha particles, the atoms reveal themselves to be enormous regions of space housing a core mass around which exceedingly small particles move, leading him to say that the objects we touch feel hard and firm when in reality they are simply an illusion, only a product of the interplay of the forces among atoms and molecules:

Matter is predominantly empty space (nothing, void, empty). When we pound a table, it feels solid, but it is the interplay of electrical forces (and quantum rules) among atoms and molecules that create the illusion of solidity. The atom is mostly void.

Later Heisenberg and his colleagues (1961:13) re-echo this observation saying that even the elementary particles is no longer real: “In the light of the quantum theory . . . elementary particles are no longer real in the same sense as objects of daily life, trees of stones . . .” In 1900, Max Planck (1857-1947), in his paper of blackbody radiation, observes that the energy radiated in heat travels not continuously but in “energy packets.” He then hypothesizes that it could also be true in the case of other forms of electromagnetic radiation. Unlike solid particles, quanta are mass-less and weightless. What is strange in this discovery is that matter in the very small world can now be seen not only as a solid particle, in the Newtonian sense, but also as packets of energy.

In 1905 Albert Einstein (1879-1955) makes an equally startling, but parallel, discovery to the effect that matter is nothing but stored energy and that the nature and form that a solid particle may finally appear depends on the amount of energy that is congealed in it. Energy, as it begins to be conceived, is continually engaged in a process of change and transformation that finally appears itself as matter or solid particle having its mass, weight, and volume. Einstein even mathematically demonstrates that the amount of energy contained in a particle can be estimated in his famous formula E = mc2, where E stands for energy, m for mass, and c2 is the conversion factor, and c represents the speed of light. In this formula, a discovery is made that, in addition to the idea that matter and energy are equivalent, Einstein believes that theoretically light travels as a stream of very tiny particles, which he calls quanta. With this discovery, everything, including the human person, can now be viewed as one, interconnected system. 

In the Einsteinian view, a solid particle or matter, since it is a form of frozen energy, is permeable, i.e., it is able to penetrate another matter or matter is able to interpenetrate with each other. Later, laboratory experiments conducted by physicists confirmed this view when they discover that subatomic particle neutrinos are so elusive that they could penetrate light-years of solid lead. It is also found out that an alpha particle can “tunnel out through the nuclear force barrier” (Paul Davies and John Gribbin, 1992:176, 204). This is also called “quantum tunneling, i.e., where matter can leave from one mark to another without moving through the overriding space Unlike solid objects, energy projects itself separately as a dynamic entity engaged in continuing change and transformation. Because of this, the nature and behavior of matter is likewise ever-changing depending on the amount of energy expended in the process. Like that of Max Planck, the dual nature of matter also emerges in Einstein’s theory, now known to us as the “special theory of relativity.”