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Thought this was interesting DON'T READ IF YOUR NOT INTRESTED IN SCIENCE
Thought this was interesting DON'T READ IF YOUR NOT INTRESTED IN SCIENCE Welcome. And congratulations. I am delighted that you could make it. Getting here wasn't easy, I know. In fact, I suspect it was a little tougher than you realize. To begin with, for you to be here now trillions ofàdriftingàatoms had somehow to assembleàin anàintricate and intriguingly obliging manner to create you.àIt's an arrangement so specialized and particular that it has never been tried before and will only exist this once. For the next many years (we hope) these tiny particlesàwill uncomplainingly engage in all the billions ofàdeft, cooperative efforts necessary to keep you intactàand let you experience the supremelyàagreeable but generallyàunderappreciatedàstate known as existence. Why atoms take this trouble is a bit of aàpuzzle.àBeing you is not a gratifyingàexperience at the atomic level. For all theiràdevotedàattention, your atoms don't actually care about you-indeed, don't even know that you are there. They don't even know that they are there. They areàmindless particles, after all, and not even themselves alive. (It is a slightlyàarresting notionàthat if you were to pick yourself apart àtweezers, one atom at a time, you would produceàa mound ofàfine atomic dust, none of which had ever been alive but all of which had once been you.) Yet somehow for the period of your existence they will answer to a single overarchingàimpulse:àto keep you you. The bad news is that atoms areàfickle and their time ofàdevotion isàfleeting-fleeting indeed. Even a long human life adds up to only about 650,000 hours. And when that modest milestone flashes past, or at some other pointàthereabouts,àfor reasons unknown your atoms will shut you down, silently disassemble, and go off to be other things. And that's it for you. Still, you mayàrejoiceàthat it happens at all. Generally speaking in the universe it doesn't, so far as we can tell. This is decidedly odd because the atoms that so liberally andàcongenially flockàtogether to form living things on Earth are exactly the same atoms that decline to do it elsewhere. Whatever else it may be, at the level of chemistry life is curiously mundane: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, a little calcium, a dash of àsulfur, a light dusting of other very ordinary elements-nothing you wouldn't find in any ordinary drugstore-and that's all you need. The only thing special about the atoms that make you is that they make you. That is of course the miracle of life. Whether or not atoms make life in other corners of the universe, they make plenty else; indeed, they make everything else. Without them there would be no water or air or rocks, no stars and planets, no distant gassy clouds oràswirling nebulaeàor any of the other things that make the universe so usefully material. Atoms are so numerous and necessary that we easily overlook that they needn't actually exist at all. There is no law that requires the universe to fill itself with small particles of matter or to produce light and gravity and the other physical properties on which our existenceàhinges. There needn't actually be a universe at all. For the longest time there wasn't. There were no atoms and no universe for them to float about in. There was nothing-nothing at all anywhere. So thank goodness for atoms. But the fact that you have atoms and that they assemble inàsuch a willing manner is only part of what got you here. To be here now, alive in the twenty-first century and smart enough to know it, you also had to be theÃÂÃÂàbeneficiaryof an extraordinary string of biological good fortune. Survival on Earth is a surprisingly tricky business. Of the billions and billions of species of living thing that have existed sinceàthe dawn of time, most-99.99 percent-are no longer around. Life on Earth, you see, is not only brief butÃÂÃÂàdismayingly tenuous. It is a curious feature of our existence that we come from a planet that is very good at promoting life but even better at extinguishing it. The average species on Earth lasts for only about four million years, so if you wish to be around for billions of years, you must be as fickle as the atoms that made you. You must be prepared to change everything about yourself-shape, size, color, speciesàaffiliation,àeverything-and to do so repeatedly. That's much easier said than done, because the process of change is random. To get from "protoplasmal primordial atomic globule" (as the Gilbert and Sullivan song put it) toàsentientàupright modern human has required you toàmutate new traits over and over in a precisely timely manner for anàexceedinglyàlong while. So at various periods over the last 3.8 billion years you haveàabhorred oxygen and thenàdoted on it,àgrown fins and limbs and jaunty sails, laid eggs, flicked the air with aàforked tongue, beenàsleek, beenàfurry, lived underground, lived in trees, been as big as a deer and as small as a mouse, and a million things more. The tiniest deviation from any of these evolutionary shifts, and you might now beàlicking algaeàfrom cave walls oràlolling walrus-likeàon some stony shore oràdisgorging air through a blowhole in the top of your head before diving sixty feet for a mouthful of deliciousàsandworms. Not only have you been lucky enough to be attached since timeàimmemorialàto a favored evolutionary line, but you have also been extremely-make thatàmiraculously-fortunate in your personal ancestry. Consider the fact that for 3.8 billion years, a period of time older than the Earth's<b> mountains </font></b>and rivers and oceans, every one of youràforebearsàon both sides has been attractive enough to find a mate, healthy enough to reproduce, and sufficiently blessed by fate and circumstances to live long enough to do so. Not one of youràpertinent ancestorsàwasàsquashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded, stuck fast, untimely wounded,or otherwise deflectedàfrom its lifeâÂÂs questàof delivering a tiny charge ofàgenetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order toàperpetuate àthe only possible sequence ofàhereditary combinations that could result-eventually, astoundingly, and all too briefly-in you. |
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