why is everything in the known universe made up of things that are round. Planets - Cells - molecules?

Answer 1

simply round... or shall i say spherical objects contains the most volume in the least surface area possible, in other words, the surface area of a cube is larger than of a sphere if they have the same volume and so on and so on, for an example in the case of an air bubble and a water drop, the surface tension effect tends to decrease the surface area thus creating a sphere, same thing with planets but here, gravity also has a roll to contain as much volume as close as possible and as you know planets were created from molten rock so the surface tension also played the same roll of decreasing the surface area here too...

Answer 2

because educational bodies over simplify things at the basic level. The universe is not made out of things that are round.. this is simply how we represent them in text books etc... for the convenience of explanation. Atoms, Molecules, Cells, even planets are not perfect spheres. The earth for instance is oblate due to the actions of the moon.

If you wish to ignore the detailed view though for instance when it comes to planets (as obviously planets are more round than square) then you should also remember that the forces that act wihtin the universe always originate from a point such as an atom or an ion etc.... and then radiate out equally in all directions. It is this equal force from all sides that means that as everything is pulled to the centre from all sides with equal force (be it gravitationally, electromagnettically or another way) the inevitably favoured final shape for such a formation will be the spherical.

Answer 3

Its due to the force of gravity. Gravity works in a spherical matter. Gravity decreases quadratically from the center of mass. The reason why a planet is a sphere rather than a cube is that on a sphere all points are the same distance at a given radius (constant gravity).

Gravity is a function of mass. The greater the mass of the object the greater the gravity. However, not all objects are entirely round. Small objects such as asteriods have irregular shapes because there is not enough gravity to pull all matter in a spherical shape. In fact one asteriod in our solar system looks like a dumbell.

Answer 4

Were you to heat one of the very large, potato shaped asteroids existing between Mars and Jupiter, you could change the shape of it into a sphere by adding a great deal of heat energy to it. Our sun, as all the planets, have a great deal of internal heat. It is for this reason they are sphere shaped.

What the heat energy does is to form gravitational waves that pass through the mass on the opposite side of the planet from where they originate. So it is the mass beneath the Indian Ocean that keeps us of the U.S. where we are, and the mass below us does the same for the Indian Ocean. The gravitational waves passing through our planet also attract the heat energy toward the core of our planet. Were this not true, then our planet would be almost the same temperature throughout.

The concept of a gravitational field is c2 = E/m. This shows that as the energy value increases or decreases, so also does the gravitational field.

Answer 5

Cells are not necessarily round - muscle cells are elongated, sperm (the smallest human cell) is tadpole shaped.

I don't think molecules are necessarily round either. Nor atoms or even the sub-atomic particles like proton and electrons. They may draw them as little balls in your chemistry/physics text books but that doesn't make them round.

I'm guessing planets are mostly round because of their own gravitional pull - if something pulls things together equally in all directions then the resulting form of the mass is a sphere. Think of a ball of rubber bands of the same size - they're all pulling in on themselves by equal amounts and you get a sphere.

Answer 6

they are not round, we draw them round as a schematic representation
- cells all different shapes

- planets (even the earth) tend to be 'fatter' around their equator due to the outward force of their spin (trying to avoid the big science words)

- molecules - assuming you mean atoms here( cause how could you think of H2O as round???) are not round either - they have an electron cloud and that means the they never know where the electron is.. exactly, so they guess. but wherever it is... there are places where it is not. and these must be wholes in your round shape!

to add - for all thoise above who commented that gravity makes things round... ok kinda, but you can poke wholes in that... but in a more simple way of thinking... there are very few instances in the universe where only one force is acting (and that force would be constant), thats the main reason we dont get round things

Answer 7

Maybe, it's because the whole universe is bollox. they're building round hospitals now and making roundish windows. the guys that have to decorate - especially putting up wallpaper - keep saying that's a load of bollox too. I like rectangular personally. Imagine if all the cells in a prison were round...... Or the cells in a police station. Although round shower cubicles are good. Especially, power showers. We will probably travel in round things one day - we could call them flying saucers....

Answer 8

The reason every thing is round in our known Universe is because of the force of gravity. Force of gravity shapes any object into a spherical shape because they are vectors that point towards one point namely the center of the object causing it to become round. Imagine if we our earth is cube-shape. It will immediately become spherical because of the force of gravity which point into the center of the cube causing it to reshape to a sphere. The same thing could be said to our atoms and molecules, except the shaping forces in the microscopic structure is the electromagnetic and the nuclear force that cause the molecules of our cells and atoms to take the spherical shape.

Answer 9

They're not. Quartz crystals are used in Scanning / Tunneling electron microscopes as a modeling system to calibrate said microscopes. The National Bureau of Standards uses these dimensions to align these microscopes and then all dimensional alignment steps are then recorded digitally in order to reproduce the findings by others using the same type of microsscope. This imaging and modeling system has pretty much stopped the bickering and denial of findings that once was commonplace in this field. I know because I worked on the first specifications.

Answer 10

i don't think all molecules and cells are round. for instance, plant cells are long and rectangular and molecules can have all kinds of shapes and sizes, hardley ever really round.
as for planets, well, i don't know why they are round,.... perhaps it's something to do with the spinning they do. really no idea about that