What & Who am I Made of?

My chemistry teacher told me at school, to demonstrate the size of a molecule, that if you take a beaker of water from the oceans of the world, count the molecules therein and then replace the water and take a second beaker, there will be 20 000 molecules that were in the first beaker that could also have been in the second beaker. This is to say that, there are 20 000 more molecules in a beaker of water than beaker of waters in all the oceans of the world. That’s how small a molecule is!

Now, as a teenager, I couldn’t help but think, what if you were to take the first beaker of water off , let’s say, Japan and the second off Newfoundland! Literally speaking, surely there would be no overlap of contents, I was of course completely missing the point but all the same I’ve got you there haven’t I Sir?  – Well, not necessarlily so. The beaker metaphor depends on you understanding that it illustrates the numerical comparison between the two quantities and you need to realise it is a comparison between the pure probability of each event happening. That is, that each molecule has a equal chance of being in both beakers, if you like, that the oceans have been vigorously ‘stirred’ and a sufficient amount of time has been left for free movement.

Imagine my literal delight/surprise to learn 40 years later the following:

The atmosphere is very dynamic. Oxygen, Nitrogen, even carbon particulates are very quickly homogeneously distributed throughout the biosphere. In a book by Harlow Shapley, “Beyond the Observatory”, the journeys of the inert gas argon are outlined. Apparently, we take in like 3×10^19 atoms in every breath, and in one week these atoms are already distributed throughout the country! A very famous example of the recycling of atoms is this. Every breath that you take, there is about a 100% chance that you will inhale at least one air molecule that was exhaled by Julius Caesar in his dying breath. In Bill Bryson’s book, ‘The Short History of Nearly Everything’  he writes that each of us share atoms that once made up Shakespeare but of course this could be any historical figure if enough time has passed to make statistical sampling unbiased.

It’s interesting that Shakespeare is used as an example of a notion for he himself (or more likely Edward de Vere) contemplated this concept in Hamlet:

Hamlet: (Examining Yorick’s scull) Dost thou think Alexander lookt o’ this fashion i’ th’earth? Horatio: E’en so.

Hamlet: And smelt so? Pah! [puts down the scull]

Horatio: E’en so my lord.

Hamlet: To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander till he find it stopping a bung hole?

Horatio: ‘Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so.

Hamlet: No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither with modesty enough, and likelihood to lead to it; as thus; Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is the earth; of earth we make loam; and why of that loam whereto he was converted might they not stop a beer-barrel?
Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:
O, that the earth that kept the world in awe
Should patch a wall t’expel the winter’s flaw!

This view, would lead to describe oneself as a temporary collection of assorted atoms that have been re-cycled from other objects and are currently assembled in such a way as to create a sentient entity,

The atoms that currently form me will have all come from something else. Some may have previously been in the rocks of Mount Everest, or perhaps they were sea water, a giant redwood tree, oxygen in the atmosphere, or the soil under our feet. They could have come from just about anything, even from other planets. Some of my atoms will previously have been part of another person many years ago, and after my death, given enough decades to fully re-circulate, will again form part of someone else, and also something else. All over the planet, since it was created, atoms have been busily re-cycling from one form to another; at times being part of inanimate objects and other times being part of a living thing, be it plant or animal or human. In a strange and paradoxical way we are both temporary and eternal, nothing and everything, thanks to our atoms.

What & Who am I Made of?