Do you find it weird that every atom of your body was something else centuries ago?

Question

I was talking to my brother and he was shocked, he never thought about it.

For example, every atom of your body may have been at some point part of different people or part of non-living things.

Answer 1

Of course. In your body right now will be a few oxygen, carbon, nitrogen and or hydrogen atoms that were once in Shakespeare, Caesar, Lincoln's pet dog, some ants and a patch of lichen.



I find it truly comforting to be intimately connected to all other life in such a way, and to know that after I die, much of me will again be part of countless other living things.

Answer 2

Forget centuries. You aren't even the same person you were when you were a child. Every atom in your body has been replaced over a few years. It's also true to say that a glass of water you drink today includes molecules once drunk by a dinosaur!

Answer 3

Some of the atoms in my body was something else a few minutes ago.

Answer 4

S And will be tomorrow, or in an hour. Why should this be weird. We are all recycled stuff. Even the basic pounders of mental sand with their fairy tale about Adam, talk of dust to dust. Worms eat dust when it has some people parts in it.

Answer 5

Carl Sagan - Star Stuff

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE9dEAx5Sgw

Answer 6

Yea, we come from stars. Wanna know something else weird, all the light that we see today, the sunshine that tans us, lets us see thigns, lets us grow things. all of that is millions of years old, due to the complicated process of nuclear fusion is a stars core, the light that is produced cant reach us for millions of years until after it is produced.

Answer 7

Wow. Like my atoms were Robert E. Lee's atoms. And I'm black. Wow.

Answer 8

I think it's awesome to think that every atom in my body came from a supernova.

Answer 9

It's sorta weird and interesting. HAHA.

Answer 10

As they say, we are all dust of stars. I was also amazed when I thought about it for the first time.

Answer 11

I love this question..the fact is that we are dependent on everything else in the universe....so why be afraid of anything?

Answer 12

I don't find it wierd..I find it interesting!!!

thanks for the deep thought.

Answer 13

Not weird... awe-inspiring.

Answer 14

It is beautiful and glorious to think about.

Answer 15

I might have been hobo piss at one point. That IS interesting.

Answer 16

maybe.. how do you test it though?