Is the Sun merely an atom in a larger molecule and we are merely like electrons spinning around it?

Question

Small particles have smaller particles in orbit around them. Doesn't it follow that we are but a small particle floating around another massive one?

Answer 1

No, an atom is nothing like a solar system. The idea of an atomic nucleus with electrons in orbit around it like tiny planets is incorrect. Though an electron is a "particle", it also has wavelike properties and does not have a defined position -- it's actually spread out in a cloud of probability around the nucleus. The behaviour of sub-atomic particles is totally alien to what we are used to in our macroscopic world.

Answer 2

Not even remotely correct. The electron whips around the nucleus of an atom in no defined plane. The planets orbit the sun more or less on the same plane, and all in the same direction. Electrons whiz around the atom so fast that you can only see the "cloud" of where they were, or maybe might be. This thinking comes about because the schools give elementary pictures of how things are supposedly to simplify the learning process. They don't think students can handle this kind of complexity.

Answer 3

No. It was once taught in school that atoms are like a tiny solar system so that students could better understand something too small for them to see. It is now known that this is not a good analogy since the electrons are not orbiting the nucleus of an atom like the planets orbit the sun so I don't think it is taught in school any more.

Answer 4

Do you mean to ask if the Sun is the nucleus of an atom that is part of a larger molecule, and Earth is one of the electrons orbiting it?

I would say probably not because for a molecule to exist, similar atoms would need to hook up by sharing an electron pair (covalent bonding) or through electromagnetic force (noncovalent bonding). The force that keeps the Earth orbiting the Sun is gravity and there are no other Suns or Solar Systems close enough to ours to equate a noncovalent bond.
If there is a noncovalent bond arrangement, however, it would mean that our existence is probably part of some giant's DNA as noncovalent bonds exist as part of macromolecules such as those comprising DNA.

Answer 5

technically no because we are made up of trillions of atoms ourselfs and the sun even more...but in a metaphorical sense i guess that could be true.

Answer 6

I have often thought of this. It seems to me possible.
But I have no proof of it. So the question remains open