The -verse hierarchy is one of the most interesting things on this wiki, and so is User:Alejandro Magno's excellent extension of this down to the galaxy level.
But this got me thinking: how low can you go? I found an old hierarchy on my computer (us googolgeometrists think alike), dusted it off, polished it, and found out that the answer is this low, apparently:
- [various parallel universes go here]
- A universe contains multiple filaments
- A filament contains multiple superclusters
- A supercluster contains multiple clusters
- A cluster contains multiple galaxies
- A galaxy contains multiple spiral arms
- A spiral arm contains multiple stellar belts
- A stellar belt contains multiple stellar bubbles
- A stellar bubble contains multiple stellar clouds
- A stellar cloud contains multiple solar systems
- A solar system contains multiple planets
- A planet contains multiple continents
- A continent contains multiple states
- A state contains multiple cities
- A city contains multiple neighbourhoods
- A neighbourhood contains multiple houses
- A house contains multiple people
- A person contains multiple organ systems
- An organ system contains multiple organs
- An organ contains multiple tissues
- A tissue contains multiple cells
- A biological cell contains multiple organelles
- An organelle contains multiple biomolecular complexes
- A biomolecular complex contains multiple macromolecules
- A macromolecule contains multiple molecules
- A molecule contains multiple atoms
- An atom contains multiple hadrons
- A hadron contains multiple fermions
- A fermion is fundamental; it contains no smaller structures
I guess you could make it cyclic if you want (fermions containing multiple -verses or something), but that's not really my cup of tea. This was originally a comment on User:Alejandro Magno's blog post, but I decided that it warranted its own.
So, what do you think?
Update: The hierarchy has been revised using new information found at Wikipedia's page on biological organisation.
Update: Various touchings-up.
Update: Made the subatomic particles more generic. Nucleon → Hadron; Quark → Fermion.
Update: Made everything into links and stopped the hierarchy at fermion.