Never bothers me asking stupid questions. Don’t learn anything pretending you know something you dont :)
So I looked at the parts of a nerve cell that get damaged.
I obviously am not sure what an atom is and what it does in a nerve cell but I guess it’s there before and after the cell is damaged.
So studying atoms and smaller particles doesn’t do a hell of a lot for healthcare, i guess :)
Well, of course it does, but none of this involves damaged atoms.
Subatomic particles make up atoms, atoms make up molecules, molecules make up proteins, fats, sugars, etc all the things that make up cells & life. Scientific discipline-wise: particle physics is a foundation to nuclear physics is a foundation to atomic physics/chemistry (though line is blurred here!) to engineering & medicine. Better understanding of each foundation step means more breakthroughs at the next level.
That’s why it such a shame we never built the Superconducting Super Collider ceding all that to the Europeans was a great shame. The spin off in materials science, vacuum technology, RF engineering, controls, high speed computing the alone generations of scientists & engineers trained by this and having access to this technology is incalculable. The Europeans will never efficiently exploit this technology advantage, not like we could!