Diploid said:

I was going to make a new thread about this, but I thought it would be apropos here, so here goes.

When you knock on wood, the wood feels pretty solid, right? But it isn't. It's almost 100% empty space. Here's why:

Consider an atom of hydrogen, the simplest of all the elements. Its lightest isotope is a single proton surrounded by a single electron, no neutrons. If you compare the diameter of the proton to the diameter of the entire atom, you find that the atom is ~99.9999999999999% empty space.

Anyway, to wrap your head around this, imagine our hydrogen atom enlarged until the proton was the size of a beach ball, about a meter (3 feet) in diameter. At that scale, the sole electron would be at an average distance of some 10 kilometers away (30,000 feet).

Remember the last time you looked out the windows of an airline at cruising altitude? If you were an electron, the beach ball sized proton you're bound to would be on the ground. Now imagine the giant sphere of empty space around which you orbit. That's how much empty space wood, your body, even solid lead is composed of.

Pretty weird eh? If the universe has a creator, he definitely has a sense of humor.

Note to purists: in quantum mechanics, there is no such thing as "the diameter of a proton". It is a meaningless concept which I'm abusing here for the sake of illustration. If you're curious as to why exactly it is a meaningless concept, I expounded on it in this post I wrote a year or so ago. If you find this thread interesting, you'll find that post interesting too.

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And to think you waste this beautiful mind on drugs.

Diploid said:

My brain is going to be 100% wasted when it rots in the ground a few years from now. If I'm going to lose it no matter what I do, I chose to waste it over time trading it for the pleasure drugs bring me rather than preserve it with boredom so that it will come to the same end anyway.

Your mileage may vary.

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will you leave me your alpha binoculars?