Let's look really closely at something. Let's look really, really closely. What shall we look at? Anything will do. Something convenient. Your hand perhaps. When you look really closely at your hand what do you see? You see that it's composed of lots of tiny, tiny atoms.
Okay, you don't actually see that it's composed of atoms, because they really are very tiny indeed, but you know that your hand is made of atoms, so just use your imagination and pretend that you can see them now.
Because you're a carbon based life-form you can see a lot of tiny carbon atoms. Here's a carbon atom in Figure 33.
These carbon atoms have got the looks of typical atoms: a central core composed of protons and neutrons with a fleet of electrons circling in orbits of different heights. Because they're carbon atoms most of them, apart from a few wayward isotopes, have six protons and six neutrons forming the central core, with six electrons in orbit. (There's more about the structure of atoms in Chapter 8.) You may have noticed that the layout and appearance of these atoms is uncannily similar to that of our solar system, with its central sun and orbiting planets (Figure 34). The chief difference seems to be that the planets in the solar system orbit in a more or less flat plane like a plate while the electrons in the atom whiz round at all sorts of angles creating a spherical shell of orbits round the central nucleus.
When comparing the solar system and the atom this similarity in structure, and the accompanying dissimilarity in size, invites a particularly entertaining concept to pop into people's heads.
Maybe, like me, you've indulged in the fantasy that atoms are not just similar to miniature solar systems, but actually are miniature solar systems, with the electrons as planets and the nuclei as the suns. Perhaps like me you've fantasised that these electrons/micro-planets are inhabited by vanishingly tiny life-forms. It's not much of a leap to then imagine that everything on these micro-worlds are themselves made of unbelievably small atoms of their own - and that these atoms are actually tiny solar systems themselves. And so on and so on, like Russian dolls, forever and ever.
Similarly, you may have fantasised that our solar system, with its planets orbiting the Sun, is in fact nothing more than a giant atom itself - perhaps part of a chair leg or cheese grater in a gargantuan larger universe.
It's a very attractive idea, but it suffers from two major drawbacks.
The first of these is simply the fact that it's a very attractive idea, which should therefore set alarm bells ringing. Attractive ideas should be treated cautiously because of their seductive powers.
The second drawback is that the notion is suspiciously based on the concept of a cosmos that functions on all levels in the same way that it functions at the level at which we happen to find ourselves.
You need to be very careful about using observations of things at our everyday level as a basis for concepts of how things function at other levels.
Here's an everyday example of why.
I remember from my schooldays a teacher telling the class "According to the laws of aerodynamics, a bumble bee can't fly." A big round body and tiny wings - there's not a hope of it getting off the ground..
You've probably seen bumble bees flying around, despite the laws of aerodynamics. So how do they manage it? One of the reasons that a bee can fly is because although it's big and round in insect terms, it's actually quite small, as you can verify if you possess a ruler. At bumble bee size the world is a totally different place to the world that we inhabit. Not only are other insects scarily huge, but the very air itself is different. To a creature the size of a bumble bee the air is not the insubstantial medium that we think of it as - it's closer to being like a liquid. This is a very buoyant medium, so a bumble bee has little trouble floating around in it, even with those tiny wings. Think of the bee as swimming rather than flying (Our arms are no good for making us fly, no matter how much we flap them, but they work very well to help us to swim).
In similar vein, you may have seen small spiders floating on the breeze attached to a single strand of silk. They float easily. Scaled up however, the whole dynamic breaks down. It would be the equivalent of you holding one end of a hundred yard long length of rope and expecting to float away as a result.
Of course, while we have a tendency to think of the air as insubstantial, we frequently experience it as otherwise, such as every time the wind blows. If you've ever tried to ride a bike very fast you'll be aware of the mounting air resistance as you speed up. Racing cyclists sometimes go to the extent of shaving their legs to combat this air resistance (Conversely, perhaps bumble bees are as furry as they are in order to exploit air resistance as a way of increasing buoyancy. This theory has just occurred to me as I write this, so there's a strong possibility that it's nonsense).
So there you are: this simple example of similar objects at different sizes - small bee, large person - shows that at different sizes things are very different, so you can't simply scale things up or down and expect them to work in very much the same manner.
Consequentially, this brings into question the advisability of our tendency to think of things such as atoms and solar systems in terms of hierarchical systems of similarly functioning, though differently sized, structures.
Our tendency to create scaled hierarchies doesn't simply apply to physical objects such as atoms and solar systems though - it applies to other, more abstract phenomena too.
We invoke the same Russian doll model when contemplating our own nature as sentient entities in the universe.
We see ourselves as conscious beings that are capable of modifying the world around us in various creative ways (or destructive ones, depending on your outlook and personality profile). As a result of our tendency to think in terms of hierarchies of similar phenomena we can hardly help but to imagine greater, grander versions of ourselves, further up the hierarchy that are doing very much the same thing that we do but on a more epic scale.
This inclination, coupled with our propensity for projecting human qualities or "spirit" onto things with abandon, is a contributing factor in our proclivity for creating gods. In some cultures the god at the top of their hierarchy is so powerful that there is only room for one of them.
If you agree with the notion that you should be suspicious of stacked hierarchies of similar concepts, on the grounds that the properties that are possessed by the objects in the hierarchies aren't necessarily transferable between scales (as in the non-aerodynamic bee), then this notion that there may be a grander version of ourselves out there controlling things could be in need of a little re-evaluating.
Our tendency to perceive many aspects of the functioning of the natural world in terms of such hierarchies probably stems to some extent from our innate psychological make-up and our nature as social animals. Human societies are organised hierarchically, as are those of most social animals, with a dominant member of the group at the top - often, for better or worse, an alpha male. So it's not surprising that we extend this hierarchy outwards and upwards, and thus place a supreme dominant being at the top of everything - often, for better or worse, an alpha male.
More on this particular alpha male later.
It's interesting to speculate as to whether or not a highly sentient creature that somehow lived a totally solitary life and that had no concept of society would come up with such a concept of hierarchies. Imagine perhaps a particularly intelligent creature that lived alone on a desert island (of the type in the cartoon cliche). What sort of model would this creature formulate when pondering the underlying nature of the universe? Would it, amongst other things, conceive of a higher version of itself as somehow being at work behind it all? Possibly not - or at least not in a way that we'd understand.
