The Universe and the Atom

“We are all connected; To each other, biologically. To the earth, chemically. To the rest of the universe atomically.” Neil De Grasse Tyson

13.7 Billion years ago the universe erupted into existence.  Following the big bang the universe consisted of a soup of light elements (mainly helium and hydrogen).  After billions of years when the violence of the big bang had subdued and conditions were just right, these elements condensed to form stars which at their core were cooking all of the heavy elements that make up the universe, such as carbon, nitrogen and oxygen.  When these stars died, the new elements were sent spinning out across the universe. 

Today the most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen, Helium, Oxygen, Carbon and Nitrogen (in that order).  Apart from the relatively inert Helium molecules, the human body consists of the same elements in the same basic order H20 (Hydrogen and Oxygen), Carbon and Nitrogen. 

The atoms that now make up your body, have been here for billions of years before you.  They have traversed the vastness of space.  Come together to form stars and planets and comets.  They have been part of all of the oceans, the air and the land.  They made up single cell organisms, fish and dinosaurs.  They have been the arrow heads of early hunter gatherers and the glaciers of the ice ages.  They were predatory animals and their prey, they were new born babies and the dying breath of the elderly.  They were blades of grass and gusts of wind. They were fabrics and artistic expressions and weapons of destruction.   And now they have come together to be you... for a while. You are simply borrowing them for the briefest period of time and once you die your atoms will go on to be parts of the earth, the oceans, the sky and everything in between.  

It is estimated that every human living today on any given day consists of at least 20 billion atoms that were once part of Shakespeare and a further 20 billion that were once part of Socrates, Julius Ceaser, Einstein etc etc .  Each  breath you take consists of atoms that have been inhaled and exhaled by every person throughout earth's history.

There is some conjecture about how long it takes for all the atoms in your body to be replaced.  But some physicists approximate that 98% of your atoms are swapped or replaced every year.  so in actual fact they are not strictly your atoms.  They come together to play a role as you for a brief period of your life and then go off to do other things, leaving others to take their place.   They have played the part of many things throughout the history of time, and once they have played the role of you for a while they move on a scatter to play different roles throughout the world and the galaxy and the universe.