{"id":13494,"date":"2020-07-21T08:05:59","date_gmt":"2020-07-21T15:05:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/?p=13494"},"modified":"2020-07-26T08:02:04","modified_gmt":"2020-07-26T15:02:04","slug":"the-biggest-ideas-in-the-universe-18-atoms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2020\/07\/21\/the-biggest-ideas-in-the-universe-18-atoms\/","title":{"rendered":"The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 18. Atoms"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Eighteenth-century chemists famously jumped the gun by using the ancient Greek word &#8220;atoms,&#8221; referring to the indivisibly small building-blocks of matter, to label the units of chemical elements. Nowadays we know that these atoms are not fundamental, they&#8217;re themselves made of smaller particles. But why is it that the particles and fields of the Standard Model come together to form these particular atoms? Let&#8217;s find out.<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"lyte-wrapper\" title=\"The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 18. Atoms\" style=\"width:640px;max-width:100%;margin:5px;\"><div class=\"lyMe\" id=\"WYL_yj_ckNi_DCA\" itemprop=\"video\" itemscope itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/VideoObject\"><div><meta itemprop=\"thumbnailUrl\" content=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/yj_ckNi_DCA\/hqdefault.jpg\" \/><meta itemprop=\"embedURL\" content=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yj_ckNi_DCA\" \/><meta itemprop=\"duration\" content=\"PT1H22M22S\" \/><meta itemprop=\"uploadDate\" content=\"2020-07-21T15:05:16Z\" \/><\/div><div id=\"lyte_yj_ckNi_DCA\" data-src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/yj_ckNi_DCA\/hqdefault.jpg\" class=\"pL\"><div class=\"tC\"><div class=\"tT\" itemprop=\"name\">The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 18. Atoms<\/div><\/div><div class=\"play\"><\/div><div class=\"ctrl\"><div class=\"Lctrl\"><\/div><div class=\"Rctrl\"><\/div><\/div><\/div><noscript><a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/yj_ckNi_DCA\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/yj_ckNi_DCA\/0.jpg\" alt=\"The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | 18. Atoms\" width=\"640\" height=\"340\" \/><br \/>Watch this video on YouTube<\/a><\/noscript><meta itemprop=\"description\" content=\"The Biggest Ideas in the Universe is a series of videos where I talk informally about some of the fundamental concepts that help us understand our natural world. Exceedingly casual, not overly polished, and meant for absolutely everybody. This is Idea #18, &quot;Atoms.&quot; Though in true Biggest Ideas tradition, it&#039;s less about actual atoms and more about why atoms are the way that Standard Model particles end up existing in our world. My web page: http:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/ My YouTube channel: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/c\/seancarroll Mindscape podcast: http:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/podcast The Biggest Ideas playlist: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLrxfgDEc2NxZJcWcrxH3jyjUUrJlnoyzX Blog posts for the series: http:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/category\/biggest-ideas-in-the-universe\/ Background image: http:\/\/physicsopenlab.org\/2017\/05\/18\/particles-in-the-mist\/ #science #physics #ideas #universe #learning #cosmology #philosophy #particles #atoms\"><\/div><\/div><div class=\"lL\" style=\"max-width:100%;width:640px;margin:5px;\"><\/div><figcaption><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And here is the Q&amp;A video, featuring both a brief appearance from Ariel and a plot of honest experimental constraints.<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"lyte-wrapper\" title=\"The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | Q&amp;amp;A 18 - Atoms\" style=\"width:640px;max-width:100%;margin:5px;\"><div class=\"lyMe\" id=\"WYL_x4-65D3Selo\" itemprop=\"video\" itemscope itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/VideoObject\"><div><meta itemprop=\"thumbnailUrl\" content=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/x4-65D3Selo\/hqdefault.jpg\" \/><meta itemprop=\"embedURL\" content=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/x4-65D3Selo\" \/><meta itemprop=\"duration\" content=\"PT56M25S\" \/><meta itemprop=\"uploadDate\" content=\"2020-07-26T14:59:18Z\" \/><\/div><div id=\"lyte_x4-65D3Selo\" data-src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/x4-65D3Selo\/hqdefault.jpg\" class=\"pL\"><div class=\"tC\"><div class=\"tT\" itemprop=\"name\">The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | Q&amp;A 18 - Atoms<\/div><\/div><div class=\"play\"><\/div><div class=\"ctrl\"><div class=\"Lctrl\"><\/div><div class=\"Rctrl\"><\/div><\/div><\/div><noscript><a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/x4-65D3Selo\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/x4-65D3Selo\/0.jpg\" alt=\"The Biggest Ideas in the Universe | Q&amp;amp;A 18 - Atoms\" width=\"640\" height=\"340\" \/><br \/>Watch this video on YouTube<\/a><\/noscript><meta itemprop=\"description\" content=\"The Biggest Ideas in the Universe is a series of videos where I talk informally about some of the fundamental concepts that help us understand our natural world. Exceedingly casual, not overly polished, and meant for absolutely everybody. This is the Q&amp;A video for Idea #18, &quot;Atoms.&quot; A bunch of good questions this week. Why certain particles decay into other ones, can there be negative-mass particles, and how do we know there aren&#039;t noticeable forces we haven&#039;t yet discovered? There&#039;s even a plot of experimental constraints! My web page: http:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/ My YouTube channel: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/c\/seancarroll Mindscape podcast: http:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/podcast The Biggest Ideas playlist: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLrxfgDEc2NxZJcWcrxH3jyjUUrJlnoyzX Blog posts for the series: http:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/category\/biggest-ideas-in-the-universe\/ Background image: http:\/\/physicsopenlab.org\/2017\/05\/18\/particles-in-the-mist\/ #science #physics #ideas #universe #learning #cosmology #philosophy #particles #atoms\"><\/div><\/div><div class=\"lL\" style=\"max-width:100%;width:640px;margin:5px;\"><\/div><figcaption><\/figcaption><\/figure>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eighteenth-century chemists famously jumped the gun by using the ancient Greek word &#8220;atoms,&#8221; referring to the indivisibly small building-blocks of matter, to label the units of chemical elements. Nowadays we know that these atoms are not fundamental, they&#8217;re themselves made of smaller particles. But why is it that the particles and fields of the Standard [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biggest-ideas-in-the-universe","category-science"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13494"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13498,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13494\/revisions\/13498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}