Compose-decompose
Ever since we discussed the iron element in our Sunday School with the girls in my community, I have been thinking about composition, decomposition.. how everything comes together and falls apart in life.
Let me walk you through.
Imagine you are observing the universe. There are stars, dying stars, supernovas, collapsing and decomposing stars, pieces of an exploded star drifting into the void after the pressurized “BANG!”, some of them making little planets, some of them making other smaller stars and also the black holes..
Let’s zoom in on one star for now. Let’s maybe pick the sun. What happens is Hydrogen molecules fuse and make Helium. This is spontaneous and releases energy. This is exactly how Earth gets light and warming heat from the Sun.
Technically, in stars the spontaneous reactions keep going. Helium and more Hydrogens make Carbon for example (just follow the logic, not meant to be perfectly accurate in terms of chemistry). Then Carbon and other elements come together make Silicon later on, then we get to the bottom of the hill and make Iron. Bottom of the hill means, to get something further from iron, you will, now, need to supply the system with energy and it will not happen spontaneously.
Wow. This is eye opening. Everything that exists is just various compositions of elements? Elements are making each other?
The iron sits at the core of the star, that is the inner most layer. The spontaneous reactions keep going but the elements cannot push through the iron stage. The tension builds up. There is gravity that holds things together, and then there is push from the neutrons that no longer like to be so closely bundled up is such a tight space. Like a pressure cooker, it gurgles and steams and gets ready to explode.
What happens next is what we see a dying star with a big bang and decompose its contents into the void. This is something we can observe using telescopes as supernovas. All the colors. So magnificent.
Iron is also the name of one chapter in Qur'an (#57). There Allah says "And we sent down iron." It fits magically with the supernova story. The Arabic word for iron is Hadid, which makes up to 26 in arabic letter math, and 26 happens to be the atomic number of iron. El Hadid = "The iron" makes 57. This was a mind blowing discovery for me.
Everything on earth came from a dying star, which collapsed and banged releasing its elements. Then reactions kept going to get us further elements. If we only had Hydrogen, we could have made all the other elements.
Elements come together and make molecules, maybe a glucose molecule. Carbons line up a special way and make coal, line up another way and make diamond. The same carbon.
Molecules come together and make macromolecules. Starch from glucose, proteins from amino acids, DNA from nucleotides. Macromolecules come together and make a cell. Cells make the tissues, organs and the body. Humans come together make a family and society.
To keep going, we need to eat. The foods we chew and decompose, like plants or other dead animals, we bring their contents back to (maybe not element stage but) molecule stage and use them in our cells. Mitochondria will generate a proton gradient across it two membranes, like a dam for potential energy. Then world's most efficient engine ATP synthase, as if singing a carousel song, will turn happily to produce ATP for us. ATP becomes the currency in all things we do inside the cells.
But there is a next step in all this composition events. The reaction is bidirectional.
If there is deterioration, organs struggle. Brain accumulate some plaques Alzheimer’s begin. Calcification in the spine, neurons cannot regulate walking, knees hurt. Heart arteries clogged, cannot pump blood well.
Human body eventually gives up. After death now the decomposition is at peak. Bacteria can just decompose the whole body back to single elements or molecules. Elements mix in with the elements of the earth. Back to square 1.
On the other hand, what seems to be happening in a black hole? That seems like a one way ticket. Swallowing the elements back to nothing?
How can this happen in an ordinary fashion, not BLOWING our minds away?
Let me know what you think below.
Comments