The Layers of Everything
It is a fact that everything is made up out of atoms. If you want to build something, you need atoms to build it. So for example, if you were to build a stone from scratch, you need to have the right atoms, place them in the right order and, boom!, you have your stone. If we only look at it theoretically, it’s as easy as that. Atoms are the building blocks of our world.
Now the thing is that we as humans don’t think nor see in atoms, but in objects. We only see a stone, an object, but in the meantime it also is a bunch of atoms sitting right next to each other, but that we don’t see. For us, the building blocks of the world are objects.
But that one stone is as much an object as it is a congregation of atoms. They are equal. Basically, any object is a congregation of atoms. Like that our stone is equal to the congregation of molecules needing to build a stone. I like to call them layers. Every layer is able to build anything with his own type of building block. The layer of atoms builds stuff with atoms, the layer of objects with objects.
The one layer we as humans can see with the naked eye, is the layer of objects. We can only see in objects, we aren’t able to notice the atoms of an object, but only the object itself. So, we can label the layer of objects as our standard layer, the label we translate everything to.
The Universe
Let’s expand that idea of layers to the universe. The hole universe is essentially a lot of atoms sitting next to each other, but at the same time the hole universe is a huge package of objects. Both packages represent the universe. We have two layers which are able to create our universe with their specific building block type. Let’s add a third one, the layer of clusters. Humans have made these up to create a better overview of the universe, but still they form a layer too, because it is able to build the universe with clusters.
A Human
If we look at a human, we can give it four different layers. The first one is atoms, then we have molecules, after that cells, and finally objects. Let me give a quick example of every layer. A hydrogen atom, a hydrogen molecule, a skin cell, and a liver. You might be able to come up with more layers yourself.
I believe you get the idea of layers. The question now of course is “Why is this interesting?!” Well, there are a lot of layers which we are discovering and unraveling, but sometimes it seems like we run into a mystery which we can not explain. I’m talking about the things which occur ‘randomly’. For example, we might understand a lot about our cells, but sometimes something odd happens in them, something we can’t explain WHY they happen.
That ‘why’ is important now. I’ll explain why the ‘why’ is important with an example. In the process of copying our DNA there can occur certain mistakes. If we ask why, we get the answer that a part of the DNA was misplaced, but why was it misplaced? Because a certain molecule was replaced with another one. Why was this molecule…? We can go on and on asking ‘Why…?’ and like that we get a chain of answers, each of them explaining the previous one.
I believe that these answers should be put into layers. All the answers about things in the DNA itself are in the layer of DNA, the things about molecules in the layer of molecules. Like that, we are able to classify our results and understandings in layers, which gives a nice structure of the things we’re studying.
Now you know. It’s meant to be a helping hand in the understanding of the world in which we exist. Try thinking about it when you’re talking biology, physics, whatever! Especially when the word ‘random’ comes up.
Thank you very much for reading this.
