Blood and matter

An image of matter - or anti-matter, to be precise.

Let’s talk about something important.

Scott: Money.

Why?

Scott: That’s the most important thing in the world.

No it isn’t – what’s more important?

Helen: Blood.

Scott: Matter – that’s the most important thing in the world.

Why’s matter important?

Scott: Everything’s made of matter, you know.

And why’s blood important?

Helen: Because you wouldn’t be able to live without blood.

Scott: Yes, but matter is everything apart from anti-matter. People might want to learn more about matter. Matter is stuff – everything is made from matter, apart from black holes. That probably means infinity things are made out of matter. There’s more cells in your body than there are stars in the galaxy. So matter… Everything, even air, is made from invisible matter. It so small, it gathers up to 500 of it and you can’t see it. It’s very, very tiny. A midgie flaps its wings 1000 times a second. So matter is… Like… Matter is everything, that’s the best way to put it. I suppose there’s like… The most important thing in the world is matter. This wouldn’t be able to happen… You wouldn’t be able to write without matter. Did I mention we’re doing this in the bath?

Helen: We’ve learned about matter.

Scott: What is matter? I thought you were listening?

Helen: I have.

Scott: Matter matters, you know.

Why couldn’t you live without blood?

Helen: Because you might not… Not be made if there was no blood in your body.

That would be bad.

Helen: Yes.

Scott: But matter’s more important – your blood’s made of matter.

Helen: Your heart is beating with blood.

Scott: Your voice is made of matter.

Helen: Invisible matter.

Scott: Yes, invisible matter – smaller than that spot on your hand.

Helen: Smaller than my pinkie tip.

Scott: I couldn’t even see it with the best microscope in the world.

What do you think about matter, Helen?

Helen: It’s very special, I think.

More special than blood?

Helen: Blood’s special.

Scott: Blood’s made of matter.

Helen: Blood’s made of matter – duh.

Infinity

Scott: Infinity?

Okay, what is infinity?

Scott: Infinity is a number that never ends. When you say some number like a billion gazillion squillion, that sounds like it’s bigger tha infinity. But no number is bigger than infinity – apart from onefinity, twofinity, threefinity…

Helen: Fourfinity, fivefinity, sixfinity, sevenfinity…

Nothing is bigger than infinity.

Scott: Apart from a few other numbers.

No, nothing is bigger.

Scott: Well, there’s twofinity, threefinity, fourfinity, fivefinity…

Infinity doesn’t end – it goes on forever and ever and nothing is bigger than it.

Scott: You could still count to it.

No you can’t, because it never ends.

Scott: Well, there is one way you can count to it.

How?

Scott: Once you knew you were going to die, you could tell someone the number – if you were counting all the time. At the school you’d be: “42, 43, 44, 45…” At work: “101, 102, 103…” When you were going to die, you would say the number to your children, who would start counting and say the number to their children and so on.

Helen: All the parents would have died and all that is left are the children.

But that still wouldn’t be enough because infinity isn’t a big number, it never ends.

Scott: Then you could make that happen for infinity years and so on and so on and so on for as long as you can imagine.

Infinity doesn’t end, but it also doesn’t have a beginning.

Scott: It starts at zero and ends at infinity.

It doesn’t end – it never ends.

Scott: It does start at zero but it goes on and one and there’s no way of stopping it, right?

It’s not really a number.

Helen: It’s infinity.

Scott: Unless we look at it as…

Mummy: Bigger than a million and smaller than zero.

Scott: What? That is… That is… (sigh) Infinity is smaller than zero, gee… What’s before zero? It’s infinity – because we’re going round in a circle!

Infinity

A map of our solar system.

What is infinity?

Scott: Infinity is the number that no-one in the world can count to. No-one can even get to the 10 numbers before it.

How big is infinity?

Scott: So big that I can’t even say. I don’t even know how many numbers make infinity. The biggest number still isn’t big enough. Infinity is the biggest number in the world, isn’t it? Isn’t it?

Well, it’s not really a number – it’s really a concept.

Scott: What’s a concept?

Well, something that you try to understand rather than something you can touch.

Scott: So it’s a number no-one can count to, mostly?

Sort of. Space is infinite, because it’s got no beginning and no end.

Scott: How does space never begin? People have been to the moon and that’s the beginning of space.

Well, that’s part of space – not the beginning. The moon is in space, but it’s not the start of space.

Scott: The end of space?

No, it’s not the end of space either.

Scott: Somewhere in the middle? A quarter of the way through?

It’s got no beginning and no end.

Scott: How does it have no beginning? If it has no beginning, how can people go to the moon?

The moon’s in space, but it’s not the beginning – we’re in space already.

Scott: How? Yes, it is… Of course… because we can see the moon and the moon’s actually the sun, isn’t it?

The moon’s the moon and the sun’s the sun. The moon’s a planet, the sun’s sort of a planet and the Earth is a planet.

Scott: But Daddy, why don’t we float into space?

Gravity.

Scott: Yes, but there’s no gravity in space.

We’ve got gravity here and it helps us stick to the ground.

Scott: But not too sticky, because I can still jump in the air. I wish there was a little less gravity so I could jump higher.

And there is the atmosphere, which protects us and means we can breathe.

Scott: Yes, but the sun has made a hole in this atmosphere so it sometimes gets a teeny bit hotter.

But we’re still in space, does that make sense?

Scott: A teeny bit. Earth is like the second or third smallest planet. Pluto is definitely the smallest, isn’t it?

The smallest near us I think.

Scott: Are any planets smaller than Pluto? I don’t think we’d fit on any smaller than Pluto.

There are billions and billions and billions of planets in space, some of them will be smaller than Pluto.

Scott: One’s so tiny I don’t think an alien would even fit on kit. If aliens lived on Pluto, they’d be the size of tiny ones.