Building Block of Universe

To understanding the universe we should a piece of chalk. Break it into two similar pieces. Break these smaller pieces into still smaller pieces. Continue this game of breaking each small piece into further smaller pieces. At some stage, you would need a hammer too. There will come a time when the pieces would have become so small that physically you would be unable to continue this process anymore. But do not stop here. Surely, if you were some kind of  a super-man or a super women, you would still man age to continue to break the chalk. What would be the ultimate end result? If you think hard, you would realize that there are two possibilities. One is that you would continue breaking the chalk into minutely smaller pieces and never reach an end. This never ending process would imply that matter is infinitely divisible. However, there is this other possibility that at some stage you would reach an ultimate limit beyond which the chalk just cannot be broken. However hard you may try that final part would be non divisible. So an important question is what is the truth? Is matter like a piece of chalk infinitely divisible or only finitely divisible? This puzzle has been there ever since human beings started indulging in deliberate and conscious thinking. Let us ponder over this issue. When you are doing this you are in good company, as these thoughts have been explored by some of the best minds that the human race has ever produced. Go to moonlit night and look around. Let the cool breeze and the soft light play on your face.

Look at the twinkling stars. How vast and diverse the universe is hundreds of questions would flood in our mind. Just then a car’s headlight flashes by you. You could see the trees, the bricks in your boundary wall and perhaps,  the neighboring houses. These are all so crazily different. The diversity in the universe is over whelming. Next, come back to your room. Look at your hand the magazine in your lap,  the pencil in your pocket, the jacket you have on, the sofa you are sitting on, the fan  which is whirling above your head, the milk in  your cup. How diverse all these are! Almost nothing, except the face that you are the same observer, seems to be connected in any simple manner. In fact, the diversity id frightening , so much so that you may start feeling lonely.

Just like you most of our ancestors were overwhelmed by the diversity in Nature. There were a brave few who dared to challenge this view and said that this complex and frightening diversity was not basic but superficial and that intrinsically Nature was far similar. The scientific enquiry in this connection began long ago by asking the question,  “what all thing are made of?” As water can co-exist in different forms solid(ice) liquid and gas (vapour), it appears to encompass the total physical reality. Hence the anicient Greek philosopher, Thales of Miletus said that all thing are ultimately made of water. But Anaximander, another Greek philosopher of antiquity, believed that the primary stuff of all physical reality can not be one of its own special form, like water is. He visualized something more fundamental which he called the “boundless” , an infinite material extending in all directions. He said that some how “stress” arises in this boundless material, to separate out sets opposites, such as wet and dry. Hot and could soft and hard, and so on.