The Greatest Disease That Ever Lived

The smallest organisms on our planet are usually the ones we fear the most. This was never more so true than today after witnessing what the COVID- 19 virus can.

Although many biologists do not consider viruses to be living beings since they need a host cell to replicate, they can still be just as dangerous as any predator. More often than not, they are deadlier. Viruses can be as small as 17nm, roughly only 17 times bigger than an atom. A single virus is virtually undetectable until it spreads through your system. They are corrupting cell after cell until it has taken over millions of your body’s building blocks.

Can you imagine how such a small creature would have perceived your body if it had the capacity to do so? As far as a virus is concerned, you are its whole Universe, and there is nothing else. Well, at least not until it replicates enough so it can spread to other people, where it finds a new universe. Can you imagine how that feels? 

Of course, you can! You feel it right now. Take a look at the heavens above. Stare at the endless blue sky for a while. It is breathtaking until you remember that this blue-looking congregation of gases is the only thing that keeps us safe from the horror of the nothingness beyond. Just on the other side, there is an infinity of emptiness. There is so much nothingness that our fragile human mind simply cannot imagine it. Well, now you can understand how a virus feels inside a human. It’s all a matter of perspective. We are the Universe of a virus, the same way as our Universe is to us. Moreover, what if we are some sophisticated viruses as well? What if we are a deadly illness in the making, at the moment so small that the host, this magnificent incomprehensibly gargantuan being, which might be our Universe, has not noticed us?  

Before I continue with laying down my thesis, I need to address something of paramount importance. I am NOT a scientist, so please take it with a grain of salt when you read this article. 

The Universe and the atoms

If you look at your surroundings right now, no matter where you are, you have one thing in common with every other thing in the Universe – atoms surround you. An atom is the smallest part of an element that can exist. Even so, atoms consist of 3 elementary particles – protons, neutrons, and electrons. Protons and neutrons reside in the atom’s core, known as the nucleus. They are held together by one of the four fundamental forces in the Universe – strong interaction. Furthermore, those subatomic particles are made out of quarks that are held together by gluons. 

Now that we know what the atom is made of let us imagine how small it is. Jonathan Bergmann gives a very comprehensible explanation in a TED-ED video. If a grapefruit had only nitrogen atoms, and each atom was blown to be the size of a blueberry, the grapefruit will be as large as the Earth. Inside, the atom gets even crazier. If you blow one of these blueberries (atoms) to the size of a football stadium, the nucleus would be the size of a small marble. This is where protons and neutrons live and where almost all of the atom’s mass comes from. Far, far away on the edge of the atom, are the electrons and between them – empty space. There are electromagnetic fields, of course, but there is absolutely no matter. 

What about quarks? Well, nobody knows exactly how small a quark is. Some scientists even theorize that they are zero-dimensional. Try to imagine that if you dare. It is so incomprehensibly small. 

What If …

So what if our solar system is an atom and our galaxy is a molecule. Well, there was such a theory at the dawn of exploring the structure of the atom. As Niel Degras Tyson explains in November 2013 on StarTalk Radio, the laws of physics that describe what is happening at a solar system are different from the laws of physics that describe what goes on in an atom. 

However, what if our solar system is just the next structural building block of an even greater organism. Imagine if our galaxy, the Milky way, is equivalent to an atom of this hyper building block that constructs our unimaginably colossal host. What if our galaxy cluster is the equivalent of a molecule, and a supercluster is the equivalent of a cell? What if our Universe is actually a living being, so enormously colossal that compared to it, our solar system is the size of a subatomic particle? 

What if we are an anomaly of a quark in one neutron in one atom in one molecule in one cell? What if we are a deadly disease that is yet too small to do any harm?

Why a disease? 

This is a very well placed question. After all, we are not evil. Well, neither is a virus. Being good and evil is a matter of perspective. The Ebola virus is not evil; it is just trying to survive and thrive, but in doing so, it kills the host if it is human. The same way humans try to survive and thrive on our planet, but they pollute it and slowly but surely consume its riches. Well, if we kill ourselves while we are stuck on one quark in one neutron in one atom, we won’t even be noticed. However, this is where space exploration enters. 

Like any other virus, the human race desires to expand. To infect (colonize) other planets and to spread across the whole body (the Universe). Actually, we are acting just like a virus. We do not strive to conserve our planet and, despite this, to expand to the stars. No, we consume Earth’s resources without any regard for the planet, and we see a new planet as an option to escape this dying quark … I mean planet. So what if we conquer the whole galaxy or the whole visible space.  

The impending doom

If we don’t destroy ourselves before that, we are sure to venture into the vast unknown of space. We will inhabit other planets, star systems, and galaxies. However, just like any other disease, we will sooner or later find our doom. We will perish in one of two ways – Our Universe’s immunity will kill us, or we will kill our Universe. Either way, we are doomed. Maybe this is why we can’t find any other life in the Universe. Our Universe’s immune system had destroyed any other “virus” before it was able to spread far enough. This would mean that if we encounter anything resembling an intelligent life out there, it might as well be the “red blood cells” of this immense organism we inhabit. Its only incentive might be to destroy us before we damage the Universe beyond repair. On the other hand, if we overcome them, we most likely will kill the host, so anyway – we will perish. 

This does not mean we should not expand. Even if we encounter such horror, we must push forward and try hard because any good virus survives not in a body but within a population.

The way out

Like any other deadly virus that spreads fears amongst humans for ages, our primary objective should be to find a way to infect new organisms. In other words, we should not aim to save our Universe, which will die no matter what, but instead, our endeavors should be to find a way to another Universe. The theory of the Multiverse is very much in line with this argument. Michio Kaku theorizes in his book “Parallel Worlds” that in a dying universe, humanity might find refuge in a parallel universe. If our Universe is a giant omnipotent being, there should be others as well. Finding a way to infect them, to transfer part of humanity to a new universe (new organism) may be the only way to ensure our species’ survival. Moreover, like any other virus, we should strive to be ever adaptable, to conquer all that our host will throw at us, and at the end, to thrive forever. 

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