You’re Basically a Fancy Pile of Stardust: The Existential Crisis of Being Made of Particles
Introduction
Let’s get one thing straight: you’re not as solid as you think you are. In fact, you’re mostly empty space, held together by fundamental forces that don’t even make sense half the time. Congratulations—you’re a walking, talking quantum accident. But don’t take it personally; it’s just physics.
So, what are you made of, really? At the atomic level, you're mostly hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus (Lodders, 2020). But let’s zoom in even further. Your atoms are made of subatomic particles—protons, neutrons, and electrons. And if we go even deeper, we find quarks and gluons, the tiny, energetic hooligans that hold everything together (Wilczek, 2004).
Still feeling solid? Spoiler alert: 99.9999999% of you is empty space (Griffiths, 2018). You’re essentially a ghost with mass, a cosmic joke that somehow became self-aware. But hey, at least you’re made of the same stuff as stars.
The Problem
Humans have always been obsessed with what we’re made of—mostly because existential dread is a universal experience. Ancient Greeks thought we were a mix of earth, air, fire, and water (Aristotle, 350 BCE). Alchemists spent centuries trying (and failing) to turn lead into gold, which honestly sounds like the original get-rich-quick scheme (Newman, 2006).
Fast forward to today, and we’ve got physicists hurling particles at each other in massive accelerators to figure out what’s inside them (CERN, 2021). Turns out, it’s mostly more particles. Even more ironically, the deeper we dig, the weirder things get. Quantum mechanics suggests that particles can exist in multiple states at once (Heisenberg, 1927), meaning that, on a fundamental level, you are an indecisive probability wave pretending to be a person.
Feeling better yet?
How We Got Here
Once upon a time, your ancestors were single-celled blobs floating in a primordial soup. Fast forward a few billion years, and you’re here, scrolling through this article on a device made of the same particles as that soup (Lane, 2015). Evolution is basically an absurdist comedy with no script.
Your body, for all its complexity, is also a design disaster. Your spine? A structural nightmare that wasn’t designed for sitting at a desk all day. Your brain? About 1.3-1.4 kg lump of fat and neurons that somehow invented quantum physics and reality TV. Your appendix? The biological equivalent of a software bug that never got patched.
And yet, here you are—an intricate, self-replicating pile of stardust that can contemplate its own existence. Good job, evolution.
What’s Going On Under the Hood?
You’re made of 37.2 trillion cells (Bianconi et al., 2013), and each cell is packed with billions of atoms. Those atoms, in turn, are made of protons, neutrons, and electrons, which are themselves composed of quarks, held together by gluons (Peskin & Schroeder, 1995).
Let’s break it down by elements:
Oxygen (65%) – Great for breathing, but also the reason metal rusts.
Carbon (18.5%) – The backbone of all life and, ironically, the stuff diamonds are made of.
Hydrogen (9.5%) – The most abundant element in the universe, yet somehow responsible for your bad hair days.
Nitrogen (3.2%) – Essential for proteins and DNA, yet also found in explosives. No pressure.
Calcium (1.5%) – The reason you have bones instead of being a sentient jellyfish.
Phosphorus (1.0%) – Powers your energy production, but also makes your urine glow under UV light. Science is weird.
You’re basically a glorified chemistry experiment with anxiety.
Why Your Body Reacts Like This
Your body is a constant work-in-progress, breaking down and rebuilding itself at a ridiculous rate. The atoms that made up you a year ago? Most of them are gone, replaced by new ones (Wagers & Weissman, 2004). In other words, you’re a Ship of Theseus situation, except with more coffee.
Your hormones? Tiny biochemical chaos agents controlling everything from mood swings to metabolism. Your neurotransmitters? The reason you feel joy, sadness, and the sudden, inexplicable urge to eat an entire pizza at 2 a.m.
And let’s not forget your fight-or-flight response. A brilliant evolutionary feature for escaping predators, but not particularly useful when your biggest threat is an unread email. Thanks, evolution.
So, What Now?
So, what’s the takeaway here? You’re a glorified pile of particles, mostly empty space, held together by forces we don’t fully understand. And instead of freaking out, you might as well embrace it.
Here’s what you can do:
Educate Yourself – Learn more about the particles that make you you. Trust me, it’s fascinating.
Laugh at Yourself – You’re made of star-stuff and yet still trip over flat surfaces. That’s hilarious.
Take Care of Your Particles – Eat well, exercise, and get enough sleep. Your quarks will thank you.
Next time someone calls you “basic,” just remind them that you’re made of 13.8-billion-year-old atoms forged in dying stars. That should shut them up.
References
Aristotle. (350 BCE). On the Heavens.
Bianconi, E., Piovesan, A., Facchin, F., Beraudi, A., Casadei, R., Frabetti, F., Vitale, L., Pelleri, M. C., Tassani, S., Piva, F., Perez-Amodio, S., Strippoli, P., & Canaider, S. (2013). An estimation of the number of cells in the human body. Annals of human biology, 40(6), 463–471. https://doi.org/10.3109/03014460.2013.807878
CERN. (2021). The Higgs Boson and Beyond. Retrieved from https://home.cern
Griffiths, D. (2018). Introduction to Elementary Particles. Wiley-VCH.
Heisenberg, W. (1927). Über den anschaulichen Inhalt der quantentheoretischen Kinematik und Mechanik. Zeitschrift für Physik, 43(3-4), 172-198.
Lane, N. (2015). The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life. Norton & Company.
Lodders, K. (2020). Solar System Abundances and Condensation Temperatures of the Elements. The Astrophysical Journal, 591(2),
Newman, W. R. (2006). Atoms and Alchemy: Chymistry and the Experimental Origins of the Scientific Revolution. University of Chicago Press.
Peskin, M. E., & Schroeder, D. V. (1995). An Introduction to Quantum Field Theory. CRC Press.
Wagers, A. J., & Weissman, I. L. (2004). Plasticity of adult stem cells. Cell, 116(5), 639–648. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0092-8674(04)00208-9
Wilczek, F. (2004). The Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces. Basic Books.
