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I want to tell you a story about Jayn. Jayn is an electron. Just one among countless others. There’s nothing particularly special about Jayn, but he plays an important role in our story.

At one point in his long life, without knowing it, Jayn would cause problems for us – but that’s not where his story begins.

Jayn’s story begins 13.8 billion years ago. He popped into existence out of the vacuum, seemingly alone in the world. Well, not entirely alone. Jayn was surrounded by cousins and friends, an ocean of elementary particles. There were quarks, there were electrons, and they all swam together in a sea of raw energy and matter.

Before long, the quarks got tired of floating around on their own. They clumped together, forming protons – massive beasts compared to little Jayn. Jayn didn’t like this new, crowded world. She loved the freedom of zipping around the universe unbound. But eventually, she felt a tug – a deep, irresistible attraction to one of those giant protons. And with that, she became part of something new: a hydrogen atom.

Jayn lived in that hydrogen atom for billions of years. Over time, she joined with other hydrogen atoms, coalescing into a star. She basked in the warmth of its outer layers, content as the star burned brightly in the universe.

Eventually, though, her hydrogen atom drifted toward the star’s core. There, something new happened. Instead of circling just one proton, she now orbited two. A new proton had joined, forming helium. This meant there was space for another electron too – her first real companion.

They shared the same orbital space, something Jayn had never experienced before. Usually, if another electron came too close, one of them would be pushed away. But not this time. This was different. They could exist in the same place, with the same energy. How? Physicists would later call it “spin”. Jayn didn’t know what “spin” meant, it was weird, but she liked it. It meant she wasn’t alone.

Jayn was happy in her helium atom, but the universe never stands still. Another proton came, then another, and eventually Jayn found herself part of a silicon atom, orbiting a nucleus with 14 protons and – of course – 14 electrons.

She was no longer close to the nucleus. Now, she was far out on the edge, in the outermost orbital shell. From there, she could feel the presence of everything around her – not just her own atom, but all the neighboring atoms as well.

But one day, everything changed. Her star exploded – a supernova – and she was flung across the universe.

For a time, Jayn was adrift again. Not alone, but not close to anything familiar. Eventually, she was caught in the gravity of a forming planet – the one we now call Earth. Her silicon atom joined with other atoms, mostly oxygen. The allure of the other atoms wasn’t strong, but it was always there.

Jayn stayed part of that silicate crystal for around five billion years. She spent billions of years tumbling through Earth’s oceans, sometimes bonding with other atoms, sometimes drifting free. One day, she washed up on a beach, part of a grain of sand. And there she stayed for a long, long time.

Now and then, she was swept out to sea again, then returned, living a simple, chaotic, quiet life.

But even quiet lives face change. One day, she was picked up – scooped up in a handful of sand, melted down, and turned into something new. It had happened before. Being melted just meant more energy, more vibration. Sometimes, she even had enough energy to escape her atom briefly before settling back down. But this time was different.

This time, she became part of something incredibly uniform: a crystal lattice where every atom around her was another silicon atom, each in perfect order. For the first time, she could feel the full, equal pull of the electrons and nuclei around her – like a vast, invisible ocean of charges. It was electrifying.

Then one day, it happened. Another electron struck. It hit hard – so hard that Jayn was knocked from her orbital shell. For a brief moment, she was free. She flew through the crystal lattice, disoriented, until she found another open spot – an empty energy state – where she could settle again. It was strange but exhilarating.

And did you know? The presence of just that one electron – Jayn – was enough to shift the threshold voltage of a transistor, change the flow of bias current, alter the frequency of an oscillator, cause my phone to loose the Bluetooth link to my door look, and made me swear a number of times until the Bluetooth link finally reconnected, many, many, many seconds later.

And yet, her story doesn’t end. Because Jayn, like all electrons, never really ends. She may pop in and out of existence, but she is always there – unchanged, identical to all her cousins and siblings.

The only differences between them are where they are, their momentum and yes, their “spin”.

So ends the story of Jayn – our 13.8 billion-year-old friend.

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