I don't think that Leonardo da Vinci would have said "every whole is greater than the part" if he knew about quantum physics.
The way physicists try to explain it these days - because it's the only way their findings make sense - is that the parts may be so far apart that scientists never even factored them into the picture.They didn't realise that a particle which seems so far away could have any relationship to the particle that's spinning under their noses - but it makes sense if you think that it's not the distance that matters it's the fact that the two are related by forces which the scientists are trying to explain. I love this thinking so much I can't describe my feelings. I always wanted so badly to be able to study chemistry because I was so interested in the table of elements and electrons and atoms and spinning particles - but I was only a 4/7 student, a passing student.
I was a 7 student in history, art and a 6 student in English. So I was never going to be a physicist. It didn't stop me loving it to this very day. It's the concept - not the math - that holds me fast. We are like particles in that living system too. Tiny, tiny, tiny particles at either ends of a living system. Sure it's ditzy perhaps to say I've always felt connected to something much bigger than me or humanity. And when people ask why I feel that - mainly men can't get a grip on this concept - I just say that I feel it, I know, it's real. It's like that snowflake that fell on my nose when I stood on top of the Empire State Building years ago. It fell in front of my eyes, glistened for a second and evaporated before it touched my skin.
And I knew it was there because I wasn't thinking of snowflakes in October. But who would believe me? It's like climate change. Who believes?
