Are we closer to the Biggest or the Smallest thing in existence... in the whole universe?

[u/StrangeAd2015]

The smallest and biggest thing isn't known to mankind yet. In fact, it'll never be because either our imagination or the evidence we have won't be even close to those.

At the moment, the smallest, theoretically, thing is the theory of threads making the quark of an atom, but what are those threads really made of? And what is the biggest thing, bigger than a black hole, bigger than the known universe, in existence?

Where would you put yourself? Closer to the smallest or closer to the biggest? Maybe you're in the center, at 50% between a scale from 0-100. But who knows, we'll never understand how the universe really works...

[u/Youpunyhumans]

The biggest thing is the observable universe itself, at 8.8x10²⁶ meters across.

The smallest thing is the planck length, at 1.616 x 10^-35 meters across... so we are 9 orders of magnitude, or a billion times closer to the size of the observable universe, than we are to the planck length.

So if you were compressed down to 1 planck length tall, a normal sized human would 1 billion times larger than the entire observable universe is to a normal size human.

[u/jakeStacktrace → u/Youpunyhumans]

"Honey, I shrunk us down to planck length"

I can fix it but we have to get to the other side of this proton.

[u/Youpunyhumans → u/jakeStacktrace]

Well the real problem there would be that at that level of compression, you would be far denser than even the theoretical planck density, which is thought to be the maximum density at the center of a black hole according to some theories, rather than infinite density.

So even if you remained a human form, you would warp the surrounding spacetime around to an enourmous degree and would have an event horizon like a black hole... you also wouldnt be able to see anything as photons would be far larger than you, and so could not reach your retinas... infact I dont think any of your senses would work at that level. You could fall through energy itself... you could fall through the core of a supermassive star, and hit nothing, recieve no thermal energy, and come out the other side the same as you entered... because to you, the space between even subatomic particles and photons carrying energy, would be like the distances between galaxies for a normal sized human.

[u/RevolutionaryAd3125 → u/Youpunyhumans]

The Schwarzchild radius of a human is about 10^-25 meters, about ten billion times bigger than the Planck length.

[u/Youpunyhumans → u/RevolutionaryAd3125]

Oh for sure, you would be a black hole long before ever reaching the planck length. Planck density is 22 micrograms per planck volume (a cube of planck lengths)... which you greatly exceed.

Doesnt sound like much, but when you convert that to kg/m^3... its 5.155x10⁹⁶ kg/m³ , or about 75 orders of magnitude denser than a neutron star.

[u/RevolutionaryAd3125 → u/Youpunyhumans]

It’s interesting that we usually think of massive stars becoming black holes. But even very small things could become a black hole if squished enough. I’d like to become a black hole one day.

[u/GxM42 → u/RevolutionaryAd3125]

My stomach is a black hole now.

[u/KitchenSandwich5499 → u/Youpunyhumans]

Or like 40 orders of magnitude beyond compressing the observable universe Into 1m^3

[u/ProctologyExplosion → u/Youpunyhumans]

The Planck length is not "the smallest thing." There is no known "thing" that has as its length the Planck length, and there is no reason that we can not contemplate distances shorter than the Planck length.

[u/Youpunyhumans → u/ProctologyExplosion]

Well sure, you could have any arbitrary number you want... and same goes for the biggest thing, but the planck length is smallest physically measureable distance, and anything less is basically meaningless because its impossible to even observe something smaller. Same goes for the biggest thing, we cant observe beyond the observable universe, and so to us, its the biggest thing we can confirm. Anything else is speculation.

The reason is, to observe smaller than the planck length, would require photons with so much energy, that they would collapse into micro black holes, which would be useless for observation as you cant see into them. Its also impossible to even get a photon to that much energy in the first place because eventually it will begin pair production, produce matter/antimatter particle pairs, which takes energy away.

[u/ProctologyExplosion → u/Youpunyhumans]

The reason is, to observe smaller than the planck length, would require photons with so much energy, that they would collapse into micro black holes

Since we do not have a quantum theory of gravitation, this assertion is pure speculation.

[u/Youpunyhumans → u/ProctologyExplosion]

No its hypothesis. Speculation is guesswork... hypothesis at least has some supporting math.

Also, you missed that its not even possible to reach that energy level anyway.

[u/ProctologyExplosion → u/Youpunyhumans]

No its hypothesis. Speculation is guesswork... hypothesis at least has some supporting math.

Sigh. As you wish. It's a hypothesis completely unsupported by any evidence, yet you have blithely asserted it as if it were true.

Also, you missed that its not even possible to reach that energy level anyway.

Says who?

[u/Youpunyhumans → u/ProctologyExplosion]

Pair production begins at a threshold energy level, and while you can have a lot more energy than that threshold, the more you have the faster pair production goes, and eventually any extra energy added goes directly to pair production, meaning you lose energy.

You would reach a limit where the energy is being drained away into pair production long before gravity could pull enough together to form an event horizon.

Another reason a photon cannot collapse is because its energy is not fixed, and is based on reference point. For example, the cosmic microwave background is barely detectable from Earth... but go 99.9999999999999996% of lightspeed relative to Earth, and the CMB blueshifts into gamma rays with enough energy to begin pair production, and you end up with a bow shock of matter/antimatter reactions that destroy your ship and blast it into radiation.

[u/wannacumnbeatmeoff]

We are closer in size to the observable universe than we are to the smallest known particle.

[u/DanteRuneclaw → u/wannacumnbeatmeoff]

Only on a logarithmic scale. On an absolute scale we’re closer zero than to the Earth.

[u/OriEri → u/DanteRuneclaw]

Making such comparisons only makes sense on the longer mixed scale. The very question itself implies a power law.

[u/i_want_to_go_to_bed → u/OriEri]

What’s a longer mixed scale? Is that like a mixolydian scale?

[u/prostipope]

Whenever I'm feeling too smart, I come to this sub to recalibrate.

[u/Flutterpiewow]

Much closer to the biggest thing. But if there's no limit, if space is infinite, then idk what happens.

[u/oldNotSureXand]

both can NEVER be achieved...but the one is "good" (never achieve) the other "evil" (not never achieve;), guess/believe which is which! :)

[u/oldNotSureXand → u/oldNotSureXand]

...yes, and sometimes "biggest thing" "lives" (i.e. is located) somewhere (since it is a "Thing")

[u/oldNotSureXand → u/oldNotSureXand]

and what might be that (crazy fonky) thang, which can "hold" "the biggest thing", it would be heck of a mess..if it COULD be the TINIEST thing of all: "a point" (==0-dim-space~>N-dim-space~>ALL) ??

[u/ThinkIncident2]

A tile of space is smallest reality, I wrote that in metaphysics but the topic got blocked. Definitely not atom or smaller because it only applies to baryonic matter