A journey to the Quantum World.. From Smaller to Smallest!
Earthquakes happen so much more often for ants than they do for us… And it’s
all because of us! Imagine how many insect houses we destroy everyday just by existing!
We often forget that. What do you think you aren’t also aware of? Let’s take a
four-dimensional trip together and live like those poor invisible creatures are living…
The universe is an unfathomably immense and bizarre place. It encompasses countless galaxies,
each containing billions of stars and planets. But it is also unfathomably
small and invisible And yet, when we shift our gaze from the vastness above to the
infinitesimally small below, the universe only becomes more expansive and enigmatic.
Miniature World Imagine standing in a park, with a
length of a thousand meters, which would typically take about 15 minutes to walk across. But now,
let’s blink twice and shrink ourselves a thousand times smaller. Welcome to the miniature world!
So first, you might wonder, what size have you become! You’re an ant! Follow me around…
Look around you, and notice how the blades of grass tower above us like skyscrapers,
and even the smallest pebble looks like a boulder. The air seems like it smells fresher,
and the sound of birds chirping is amplified to an incredible level. As we begin to walk,
we realize that it will take us hours, if not days, to traverse this park in our shrunken state.
We may even encounter new creatures that were invisible to us before, such as our fellow ants
that now seem like our friends, or microscopic organisms that are normally too small to see,
A grain of sand becomes the size of a rock, etc… The possibilities for adventure in this miniature
world are endless, and our imagination can take us on a journey beyond our wildest dreams.
As you attempt to escape this overwhelming environment, you realize that the air has
transformed into a thick, gooey substance. Moving through it feels as if you are traversing honey.
Insects, however, utilize this dense air to their advantage, propelling themselves forward with
paddle-like wings. A bee, at its scaled-up size, could easily outpace a Concorde Jet,
a feat impossible for its real-life counterpart due to weight constraints.
Microscopic World But let's take our
journey further. blink twice once again, and now we enter the microscopic realm. You shrink to a
minuscule 2 micrometers, comparable to the size of an E. coli bacterium. The once-expansive park now
extends a million kilometers in width, a journey that would take you 25 years to cross on foot.
In this microscopic world, a giant bee becomes a mountainous structure, reminiscent of Mt. Everest,
buzzing and vibrating with life. The air feels dense, almost like viscous lava,
hindering your every movement. Blades of grass stretch beyond your field of vision, resembling
vast landscapes like Paris to a regular-sized human. And within this seemingly barren terrain,
you discover a multitude of individual cells, each resembling a house with a glass-like exterior.
Stomata, akin to gaping mouths, punctuate these cells, inhaling air and exhaling oxygen.
Suddenly, the massive bee starts moving, revealing its intricate structure resembling a suit of
armor. It takes flight to evade a droplet of water, now the size of an asteroid, hurtling
toward you at astonishing speed. The impact you anticipate turns out to be a suction, pulling you
into the droplet. Swimming becomes a futile effort as the water clings to your limbs like glue.
Air molecules, once free spirits, now seem to act as social creatures,
sticking together and creating a force that traps you within them… Within this miniature lake,
you observe the presence of tens of thousands of microorganisms, exhibiting various shapes
and sizes, including viruses the sizes of tennis balls and Euglena oxyuris cells that
glide past like freight trains. Oily jellyfish-like organisms,
comparable to cars, propel themselves with long tentacles acting as supercharged propellers.
Molecular World And now, let's delve even deeper into the molecule
realm. With two more blinks, you become the size of a molecule, measuring under 2 nanometers.
The water droplet that surrounded you becomes as immense as the moon to a regular-sized human.
Are you able to imagine that! Seems to me like every dimension has its own definition of a moon…
The blade of grass beneath it stretches from the tip of Alaska to the end of Australia.
The entire park, now almost the size of the solar system, is teeming with
countless molecules and atoms. Guess we start needing rocket ships to move around.
The rigid walls of grass cells vibrate, pulsating with waves of energy. The droplet itself contains
an astronomical number of water molecules, perpetually in motion, crashing into each
other at incredible speeds. This furious motion derives from heat, where molecules vibrate,
twist, and collide incessantly. Temperature, in this realm, reflects the average speed of these
energetic dancers. In a sudden turn of events, a particularly forceful collision propels you
out of the water droplet and into the air. Here, you encounter a surprising revelation:
the space between air molecules is a vacuum. Despite appearances, only a fraction of the
volume is occupied by molecules and atoms, leaving 99.9% as empty space. So much to run around…. FUN!
Subatomic World Finally, let's take one last
blink and enter the subatomic realm. Oh my, what have we here! At under 2 picometers in size, which
is the equivalent of one trillionth of a meter, the concept of scale becomes incomprehensible. A
human would tower over you, stretching their arms from the Sun to Saturn. That’s around
1.4636 billion kilometers in equivalence… there’s no way that could be the case!
An atomic nucleus, once the central core, becomes a mere grain of sand that fits on the
tip of your finger. This tiny grain contains an astounding 99.97% of the atom's mass,
while the rest forms the electron cloud, a sphere of influence resembling the Eiffel Tower in your
perspective. Electrons, elusive and ever-changing, dart around outside the nucleus, creating a
vibrating, dynamic mess. Atomic nuclei, chaotic and blurred, constantly twist and vibrate at an
astonishing rate. The immense energy they possess mirrors the power harnessed in nuclear bombs.
But is that all? Seems like it won’t be your last blink after all..
Quarks Let’s see now, how far can we go!
Well, our last stop will be the foundation of everything… Let’s take a journey one step
deeper into the world of particles and discover the tiny wonders called quarks! These super small
particles are almost invisible, but scientists have found clever ways to prove they're real
through experiments. Quarks are like the master builders of protons and neutrons - the building
blocks of the atomic nucleus. These quirky quarks are so interesting because they have
unusual features like a fractional electric charge and they're always hanging out with
their quark buddies. So, let's get excited about these tiny, but mighty particles!
The world of quarks is a fascinating one, full of strange and exotic particles that scientists have
been studying for years. These tiny particles are so small that they cannot be seen with
the naked eye, and they are incredibly elusive, requiring special tools and techniques to study.
Even so, scientists have managed to learn a great deal about quarks over the years,
and their findings have helped to revolutionize our understanding of the universe we live in.
So, what exactly are quarks? In essence, they are the building blocks of matter. They are found
inside of protons and neutrons, the two types of particles that make up the nucleus of an atom.
Quarks are incredibly small, with a radius of about 10^-18 meters (that's
0.000000000000000001 meters!), and they come in six different "flavors": up, down, charm,
strange, top, and bottom. These flavors are a bit like the different types of ice cream
you might find at an ice cream shop, each with its own unique characteristics and properties.
One of the most interesting things about quarks is that they have fractional electric
charges, which means they carry only a fraction of the charge of an electron.
This is unlike the charged particles we typically encounter in our daily lives, which have either a
positive or negative charge (like a proton or an electron). Quarks can also never be found alone;
they are always found in groups of two or three, bound together by the strong nuclear force.
This is a bit like how molecules are made up of atoms, which are bound together by chemical bonds.
So, what do quarks do, exactly? As we mentioned earlier, they are the building
blocks of protons and neutrons, which in turn are the building blocks of atoms. Without quarks,
the universe as we know it could not exist! Scientists believe that
quarks may also play a role in the formation of other exotic particles,
like mesons and baryons, which are made up of combinations of quarks and anti-quarks.
Outro And so,
our journey through the dimensions has come to an end, from the giant world of ants
to the subatomic particles of quarks, we find ourselves back in our familiar human scale, the
perfect middle ground in this vast and peculiar universe. We have always explored the vastness
and intricacies of the universe, discovering new wonders at every turn in this channel.
It’s been nice to take a trip backwards and see what’s under there, what makes us! From
this experience, we can appreciate the complexity and beauty of our existence, and the importance of
understanding the smallest and largest components that make up our reality. Let us never stop
exploring, learning, and appreciating the wonder of the universe we inhabit.
Thanks for watching, and we'll see you in the next video, where we'll explore
more fascinating aspects of our world! Don’t forget to like, subscribe to our
channel to stay tuned with our latest videos and most exciting subjects! Let us know in
the comments what you thought about this trip and leave a review! See you soon..