In Preparation for Detour, Part 5 - Exhibit B

There's a game in Vegas they like to call Roulette,
and it's a near perfect visual-aid for describing atomic structure.

The dealer spins the wheel in one direction, and flings a little white ball in the opposite direction... Place your bets! Now think of that little white ball as a single electron, and the roulette wheel becomes very much like the hydrogen atom... only much, much bigger: there is a center, and there is a body that moves about that center. The difference, however, is that people don't bet on the spinning of electrons, or mix roulette wheels with oxygen to make cool and refreshing drinks.

The Hydrogen atom is made up of one proton and one electron. The proton, or nucleus, sits still while the electron constantly spins around it. The centrifugal force of the spinning electron keeps the two particles from colliding with each other much as the earth's rotation keeps it from plunging into the sun.

And we're just talking about Hydrogen here. Every other element has a different structure, with more electrons spinning about their nucleus'. The point is, electrons are very small; smaller, in fact, than the whole of the atom itself... and smaller than protons.

So, when we consider that electrons are smaller than protons [and what does it really matter when the atom itself is so invisibly small to begin with?] we begin to get a clearer picture of 10⁷⁹.

One would think that with electrons being so very, very, tiniest-fraction-of-a-scintilla to the square root of an iota's tiniest-est small, that 10⁷⁹ wouldn't take up a whole lot of space. And yet all these electrons take up all the known "space" in the known universe.

How's that for 10⁷⁹ ? Is it big enough for you yet?



Next:
Detour, Part 5 - Jesus of Nazareth and Statistical Impossibilities

Previously:
In Preparation for Detour, Part 5 - Exhibit A
Detour, Part 4 - Comparing Translations to Established Christian Doctrines
Interlude No.1
Detour, Part 3 - Manuscripts, Translations, and "Why the KJV?"
Detour, Part 2 - The Nature and Limits of God... and why this is important
Detour, Parenthetical - "What Will Shortly Follow"
Detour, Part 1 - "Preamble"
Warning: Detour Ahead