Beneath You

If I were to ever get a tattoo - willingly, and of sound mind - which I would never do - I think a science tat would be a good bet. I like this particle collision one, though of course it's totally stupid and hideous. But anyways! Everything I described below is at a macro and uber-macro level - that is, bigger than us. Way, way bigger. But of course something very similar is happening for things smaller than us - in fact, we sit in the middle of an endless progression from big to small, a spectrum, or wave, if you will. Not the exact middle, because - where's that? But a middle. Everything does, since, what is the middle of an infinity? Everything is, basically. Further anyways, also (WARNING: Gonna get super sciency!):

 This little chart shows the interactions of the various elementary particles we believe make up our reality. You can get an idea how pivotal the Higgs Boson is by looking at it's relationship to the other particles - it imparts mass - and thus how important the work being done at CERN right now to try and discover the Higgs Boson. If discovered, it validates 30 years of Quantum Mechanics. If not discovered, well, either they need a better machine, or better testing method, or the Standard Model (as it's called) was incorrect and needs to be changed.

 Click for big - this is the Standard Model, in poster form. Super sciency, beware, but also dive on in. It won't bite. I can summarize it by saying it's basically a model for how the most fundamental particles we know of today interact, and how they also contribute to the basic Forces we know and feel, like electromagnetism, and the strong nuclear force. It was the principles enshrined in the Standard Model that allowed us to crack the atom, so discarding it would be a major deal. It's important to note - as with ALL theories and "laws" of science - that everything discussed here is subject to change. For example, there are many theoretical physicists working in area called "String Theory", which if proven to a sufficient degree, would overwrite much of the working knowledge in physics - as in above, the quarks would be made of tiny strings, and extra-dimensions might contain a mult-dimensional gravity, etc, etc. It's all quite fascinating, but the biggest point to get across is: Everything's temporary. Even the most established fact. All "truths" are subject to revision if new evidence present itself. And so with that in mind:

A representation of an atom. It's important to grasp this concept: Even the most basic block of what we consider reality is not what we think it is. The blue surrounding the red dot in the center is the electron probability cloud, which means: Electrons don't truly exist in our reality until definitively measured/observed. Till then, they're kinda here, kinda there. That is the basis of our reality: Uncertainty. Temporary. Ephemeral. Miraculous and Mysterious. And no one does, or can ever, know it all. 

And thus a true scientist is humble, and operates with a wondrous mind straddling two worlds: Current, operational facts that have proven successful to date, but always open to the idea of new facts, new ways of being, that are truer, better, more close to the real than before. And one needs to adapt at any time to these new facts. Some people can't do this, it seems. Some can.

Which are you?


Also too, for scale purposes:

So small that it's beyond our minds. So, consider this in the larger view: Above us, galaxies and galaxies and maybe even Universe upon Universe, so vast that I can't possibly describe it accurately; and beneath us, smaller than us, an equal vastness that is ever driving down to smaller and smaller realms. And perhaps completely separete dimensions. One of my favorite theories at this scale is called "quantum fizz", and it means that at the quark level, quarks and anti-quarks pop into existence all the time, to quickly annhiliate, in a manner similar to the fizz in a soda. Random, spontaneous, and short lived. But this fizz is our reality, at least one level. There's many others.

Or, as Granny said:

It's turtles all the way down.