Name of popular hypothesis? (cited in men in black)

[muroftuab]

I've heard this in many placed, though I'm not sure where it originally came from (not necessarily bad astronomy, just hypothesis):

I've heard it cited in movies, books, and in comic stand-up: "what if our universe is just an atom in the cell of a body of some other man in another universe - and what if we hold infinitely many universes in our bodies..." Yeah one could go on for whatever effect they want; I've heard a lot of permutations. Does this have a proper name?

[HenrikOlsen]

A mistake based on thinking that the earliest description people are taught about atoms is the whole truth rather than an extremely simplified introduction to the subject?

[Gigabyte]

It is called the "Plutonium Atom Totality" theory. Coined by a notable, and prolific Usenet character, Archimedes Plutonium (born Ludwig Poehlmann in 1950, raised as Ludwig Hansen, legally changed his name to Ludwig van Ludvig, then Ludwig Plutonium, then later changed it to Archimedes Plutonium).

[dgavin]

It is called the "Plutonium Atom Totality" theory. Coined by a notable, and prolific Usenet character, Archimedes Plutonium (born Ludwig Poehlmann in 1950, raised as Ludwig Hansen, legally changed his name to Ludwig van Ludvig, then Ludwig Plutonium, then later changed it to Archimedes Plutonium).

Minor Correction

The original concept was based loosely on 'Multivesre' hypothesis and then translated into popular culture as the "Infinite Multiverse" story by the comic book "Atom" which dates back to the 1940's before Ludwig Poehlmann was even born.

[Nowhere Man]

"He Who Shrank" by Henry Hasse was published in Amazing Stories in 1936. It's an old idea.

Edit to add: The solar-system-like atom model is the Bohr model (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohr_model) of the atom, dating to 1913. I don't know who came up with the idea of extending it to the point of making atoms into actual solar systems, and vice-versa.

Fred

[DonM435]

So, with nine planets since 1930, our solar system was a Fluorine super-atom. With the demotion of Pluto, it's just Oxygen.

[HenrikOlsen]

Billy Connolly explains that hypothesis quite eloquently here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmJBO7DKqPM).
Note, his language not really safe for work, though it'll probably cause people to stop working to laugh, rather than get offended.

[Paul Beardsley]

So, with nine planets since 1930, our solar system was a Fluorine super-atom. With the demotion of Pluto, it's just Oxygen.

Couldn't it be ionised fluorine?

[mike alexander]

Positively ionized fluorine is not terribly stable.

[Swift]

Positively ionized fluorine is not terribly stable.
Which the Mayans knew and is why the world will end on 12/21/12.

[AndreasJ]

Couldn't it be ionised fluorine?

Nah, because then it'd be an ion rather than an atom.:dance:

[Gigabyte]

This is going to end up in Fun-n-Games

[DonM435]

Nah, because then it'd be an ion rather than an atom.:dance:

The Fluorine cation is unstable, but the anion is okay. Or is that an onion, I forget?

[hhEb09'1]

Positively ionized fluorine is not terribly stable.So, we NEED Pluto back?

[Jeff Root]

I don't know why you revived this, but it gives me an opportunity to add
"The Diamond Lens" (in Atlantic Monthly, 1858) by Fitz-James O'Brien,
and "The Girl in the Golden Atom" (1919) by Ray Cummings.

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

[agingjb]

Then again the number of atoms in the human body is so large that there must be life on one of them.

(Avogadro's number is somewhat bigger than the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and we know that there must be life out there somewhere amongst all those stars. Don't we?)

[chrlzs]

Hrrumph...

It's... turtles.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down

[IsaacKuo]

Ah, but the turtles are all the same size.

It's more like the flea hypothesis:

"Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.
And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on,
While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on"

--Augustus De Morgan

[Noclevername]

Wasn't there some ancient Greek philosopher who talked about atoms being small worlds, right after they came up with the idea of the atom?

[Ara Pacis]

Wasn't there some ancient Greek philosopher who talked about atoms being small worlds, right after they came up with the idea of the atom?

Dr. Suess?

[Gillianren]

Or Seuss, even?

[Tuckerfan]

I prefer the following take on the subject:

Some trillions of years ago, a sloppy, dirty giant flicked grease from his finger. One of those gobs of grease is our universe on its way to the floor. Splat!