If you’d asked your chemistry teacher 50 years ago, once you’d looked at that mysterious chart of boxes (the periodic table), where did those elements come from, the chemistry teacher would probably not have an answer for you. “Oh well we dig em out of the earth”. That’s not where they come from. It took modern astrophysics to determine the origin of the chemical elements. We observe stars, we know what goes on in their centre and they explode laying bare their contents and what we have discovered is that the elements on the periodic table, that of which we are made of, derive from the actions of stars that have manufactured the elements and subsequently contaminating and enriching gas clouds which then form a next generation of stars, populated by planets and possible life.
When you look at the ingredients of the universe, the number one ingredient is hydrogen. Then its helium, oxygen, carbon and Nitrogen. These are the top ingredients in the universe. We look at earth and say “oh we’re special”. But what are we made of? What’s the number one molecule in the body? Well its water. What is water made of? Well that’s simply Hydrogen and Oxygen. The fact that you can rank elements in the human body, with the exception of Helium (which is chemically inert and useless to you for any reason other than to inhale it and sound like Mickey Mouse). The No1 element in the human body is hydrogen-matches the universe. No2 is oxygen-matches the universe. No3 is carbon-matches the universe. No4 is nitrogen-matches the universe. So we learn in the last 50 years that not only do we exist in this universe but it is the universe that exists within us. Had we been made of some rare isotope of Bismuth then one could argue that we are indeed something special. There are people who are upset by this fact saying “oh does that mean that we are not special?” I think it means that we are special in another kind of way because when you look up at the night sky it’s no longer we are here and that is there, it is that we are part of that. It’s almost spiritual, looking up at the night sky and finding a sense of belonging, given what we’ve learned about the night sky.
So are we alone in the universe? We are made of the most common ingredients there are and our chemistry is based on carbon which is the most chemically active ingredient in the entire periodic table. If you were to find a chemistry in which to base something really complex called life, you would base it on carbon. It’s the fourth most abundant ingredient in the universe. It’s not rare! In spite of my diatribe about UFOs, if you asked me if we were alone in the universe, it would be inexcusably egocentric to suggest that we are alone in the Cosmos. The chemistry is too rich to declare that. There are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand in the world.
So we haven’t found life outside of earth but we haven’t looked very far yet- but we are looking. Given the right ingredients, which are everywhere, life may be an inevitable consequence of complex chemistry. If that’s the case then we need to look around our own solar system. Let’s look at Mars. All the evidence suggests that Mars was once a wet and fertile place. It’s all bone dry now. Some nobs got turned in its environment that left it the way it is right now. Some bad nobs got turned on Venus too with its runaway greenhouse effect. 900 degrees Fahrenheit on Venus. This is what frustrates oneself about people who say “why spend money studying the universe when we should be worrying about what’s happening down here?” I don’t want a greenhouse effect here, do you? That minuscule reason should be enough surely. Venus is the best example in the solar system of a planet gone badly.
Asteroids impact with other objects the cast matter into space with an escape velocity, so they never return to the planet they have been cast off from. If Mars was wet and fertile before earth was, as the evidence seems to suggest, then it is possible that there were bacterial stowaways in the nooks and crannies that got cast off into space. Some bacteria, that we know exists on earth, can survive extreme temperatures at both ends of the spectrum. The hostile environment of space would be nothing to some of these bacteria. Maybe life on earth was seeded by rocks that were cast free from Mars. This is a plausible scenario called Pan-Spermia, the transference of life from one planet to the next (btw please forgive the name of this theory- I didn’t make it up). If this is the case then this makes all of us descendants of Martians.
Let me give you a disturbing thought. If you look at our closest genetic relative, the Chimpanzee, we can see that we are much smarter than a Chimpanzee despite sharing¬ 98+% of their DNA. Intelligence here is what makes us unique. The most intelligent chimp there ever was, was able to do a bit of sign language. Well our toddlers can do that. So here’s what concerns me deeply. Everything that we are, that distinguishes us from chimps emerges from that 1% difference in DNA. The Hubble telescope and the ISS- that’s in that 1%! Maybe everything that we are compared to the chimp is not as smart as we tell ourselves. Maybe the difference between constructing and launching the Hubble telescope and a chimp combining two finger motions as sign language is not all that great. We tell ourselves it is, just in the same way we name our books optical illusions. We tell ourselves it’s a lot but maybe it’s nothing.
But how would we conclude this? Maybe take another life form that’s 1% different from us in a northern direction. What are we to them? We would be blithering idiots in their presence. They would take Stephen Hawking and roll him in front of their primate researchers and say:
Alien 1: This is one is the most brilliant among them because he can do Astrophysics.
Alien 2: Oh isn’t that cute! Little Johnny can do that too. In fact let me go get his scribbles off of the refrigerator door.
Think about how smart they would be. Quantum Mechanics might be intuitive to their toddlers. So the notion that we are going to find some intelligent life and have a conversation with it? When was the last time you stopped to have a conversation with a worm. You may have had a conversation but I don’t think you expected an answer. We don’t have conversations with species on earth, with whom we have DNA in common so to believe that some other intelligent species is going to be interested in us and have a conversation is a bit farfetched. They will look at the Hubble telescope and say “ah isn’t that quaint”.
I lay awake at night thinking that maybe we, as a species, are too stupid to figure out the universe that we are investigating. Therefore I’m jealous of the higher 1% species who might intuit all of our questions and fulfil the anthropic principle, because I want to be around for those discoveries.
beyond the Edge of reason 