earlier today, i was at work listening to neil degrasse tyson talk about the elements that make up the human body. by number of atoms, the big four are hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen.
which, okay. sure. high school science. this is the type of information sitting somewhere in the back of our brains alongside mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell and the vague knowledge that photosynthesis is how plants eat.
except then he says that if you look out into the universe, you find those exact same elements making up everything out there too. or, in his words: “we are not simply in this universe. the universe is in us.”
and i just sat there at my desk like 🙂👍
i mean, obviously i know we’re made of atoms. i know the earth is made of the same periodic table as everything else. none of this was new information.
but there was something about hearing it laid out that plainly that made the whole thing feel more??? idk? magical???
if neil degrasse tyson ever reads this and decides to spend the next hour explaining why my use of the word magical is scientifically offensive, that’s fine. i’ll take it.
because i don’t mean magic as in we don’t know how any of this works, therefore magic.
almost the opposite, actually.
the moon is almost 400,000 kilometres away from us and somehow its gravity still reaches across all that distance and moves entire oceans.
like. come on. how is that not a little magical???
and yes, i know why tides happen. that’s kind of my point. knowing the actual scientific explanation doesn’t make it feel any less magical to me. if anything, i keep finding out how something works and becoming even more fascinated by the fact that it works that way at all.
🚨 TODAY IN THINGS I DIDN’T NEED TO KNOW
okay so apparently, because there are an absolutely stupid number of molecules in every breath we take and the atmosphere has had thousands of years to mix them all around, the air we’re breathing right now is full of molecules that have just been circulating and re-circulating around the earth. this means that in the breath we just took, and in every breath we will take thereafter, there are almost certainly molecules in there that once passed through the lungs of our ancestors including, among others—
MISTER JESUS H. CHRISTTTTTT
and i’m sorry but isn’t that an INSANE name drop????? BECAUSEE LIKE???? THAT’S LITERALLY THE WATER-TO-WINE GUY. JESUS JESUS????
naaaahhh because even if you don’t think so, i think it’s an absolutely banger FACT. zero practical value. 10/10. (and yes this is real. source: actual science, not just the voices in my head.)
i actually don’t know how to end this lol???? i mean i could yap moreeeee obviously but i think this quote i’ve remembered for YEARS probably sums up what i’m trying to say better than another 3000 words from me which is funny, because i could not tell you what i ate 3 days ago, but my brain had kept this quote word for word until the day i’d predictably develop a hyperfixation on astrophysics and need it for my blog:
“we live on a blue planet that circles around a ball of fire next to a moon that moves the sea, and you don’t believe in miracles?”
this probably lived on somebody’s tumblr sidebar in 2013, but in all seriousness. how do you read all that and not want to know more?
niña's blog 