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I remember my teachers mocking me when I was saying that if the Sun is a star it's rather logical there are planets around other stars and that the view that they don't exist is the extreme one, but I was scoffed at that this is "pure speculation" and "science fiction".

On the other hand, when seeing a model of atom and solar system for the first time I was convinced reality is a set of layers with the micro- and macrocosm being just the two closest ones we're able to perceive, but I'm far less sure of it now.




> On the other hand, when seeing a model of atom and solar system for the first time I was convinced reality is a set of layers with the micro- and macrocosm being just the two closest ones we're able to perceive, but I'm far less sure of it now.

Yeah, I thought like this too until we started covering the basics of quantum physics and our teacher explained to us how the Bohr model of an atom was only a crude approximation of what's happening. I no longer see atoms as miniature solar systems, but every now and then, I ponder if the planets aren't macroscopic electron clouds...


the wikipedia on atomic orbital has some nice pictures of the wave function of electrons around the nucleus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_orbital


Oh, they certainly are, as scientifically documented in "He Who Shrank", by Henry Hasse.


God bless that planets do not jump to an outer orbit when they get excited :-)


Perhaps we are destined to perceive it like layers because of our perception, and not reality itself :)




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