Chapter category: Evolution
Life in a Tenuous Universe
The Genomic Potential Hypothesis: A Chemist's View of the Origins, Evolution and Unfolding of Life
Edited by: Christian SchwabeISBN: 1-58706-044-2
» Get more information about this book at landesbioscience.com «
Chapter authors:
Christian Schwabe
The question is, do we live independent of the shape of our universe, or are we an intimate partner as well as a beneficiary of its peculiar structure and its awesome dimension? The space-time that life needs to exist has been torn out of matter energy in the core of a vast and expanding geode. We are creatures as well as prisoners of space and the vagaries of time. Our home, what is it like, are we (living creatures) a quirk or a consequence?
Could there really have been nothing? It is hard to imagine, yet the standard model of the Big Bang starts with a submicroscopic space of very high density. That does not mean that it is true but it is the model that arises from doodling with Einstein’s equations and Einstein is the best bet around.1
Relativity tells us that time slows down in extreme gravitational fields (around a black hole, for example) and during extreme acceleration (this is referred to as time dilation). The primordial singularity is imagined as being much denser than even a black hole and if time at the Schwartzshield radius (the sphere of "no return" around the black hole from which even light cannot escape) must stand still, then time must certainly have been captive of the gravitational force in the Big Bang singularity (singularity here refers to the unity of all forces as opposed to the uniqueness of our universe). The perception of time, it is theorized, would be the same as ours for anybody living (hypothetically) in a black hole. The light would move away from the hole at the speed of light measured in unit time in the black hole! But time does not flow at all or infinitely slow under these conditions and hence--for the outside observer--light does not get out. This is part of the invariance concept of relativity. Perhaps it is better to say that time is not defined during this period. Physicists prefer it that way! When they face the stark consequences of their own ideas they fade from the scene much like (Goethe’s) Dr. Faust did at the sight of the spirit of the earth whom he had conjured.
Additional chapters from this book:
The Genomic Potential Hypothesis: Introduction
Christian Schwabe
The Genomic Potential Hypothesis is a biochemists' view of the origin, evolution, and development of life. Large numbers are second nature to a biochemist an...
Quintessence
Christian Schwabe
Steven Weinberg once said that the complexity of physics today reaches very close to the edge of the human intellect.1 Where would that leave us, the bioch...
Experiments in Evolution
Christian Schwabe
Conceptual science interfaces with the experimental world as predictions emanate from the internal logic of a paradigm. Hypotheses concerning the origin and unfolding...
Molecular Geneology
Christian Schwabe
Is it rational to expect proteins such as insulin, relaxin, hemoglobin, or cytochrome to have followed the evolutionary route of the organisms from which they were taken? Of course it is , but...
On the Evolution of Humans
Christian Schwabe
Ancient bones are somewhat like wind vanes that show from which direction a particular hypothesis breezes across the fossil field. If a paradigm is useful one should ...
The Invariance Concept
Christian Schwabe
Tucked away, if it were possible, within the hollow of the tip of a dart gun needle aimed at man or beast one could make a memorable discovery. Just a moment after sk...
Natura non facit saltum (Nature does nothing in jumps)
Christian Schwabe
Latin is intimidating, and people tend to defer to anything expressed in that venerable language. Of all the errors chiseled into our cultural foundation in Latin, th...
Thoughts on Multi-Cellularity: How Nature got Around Darwin
Christian Schwabe
Reproductive success is the ultimate criterion for survival in the Darwinian paradigm, and since micro-organisms are undisputed champions of reproduction the countles...
Development of Biological Potential
Christian Schwabe
Should development come after speciation? Yes, of course, in the new model it is natural, one produces the Anlage and develops it to its potential. The word evolution...
The Origins of Species
Christian Schwabe
There was never a time on earth when only one kind, one species, existed. At least there is no evidence to that effect and a plausible extension of that simple though...
The Condensation of Life
Christian Schwabe
The course of biogenesis was carved into molecular structures by the events of the primeval initiation of our universe. The speed at which pure energy segregated into...
Our Young Planet: One is not a Choice
Christian Schwabe
The old model begins with one origin and the biochemist knows that to be impossible. The scientific basis for the genomist’s position has been discussed and will...
The Origin of Complexity
Christian Schwabe
Clearly, molecular complexity was a precondition for biogenesis. Contiguous molecular structures are monkey bars for electrons that provide the stream of energy requi...
Genomism and the Nature Trail
Christian Schwabe
As genes move into the center of a hypothesis one needs an "ism" to refer to the background of ideas that make up the new model. Thus, as the term Darwinism...
The Frame for New Hypotheses of Evolution
Christian Schwabe
How does one present any new idea, which is in principle impossible to proof? Hypotheses are self-limiting and an old paradigm of evolution will fall victim to its er...
Life in a Tenuous Universe
Christian Schwabe
The question is, do we live independent of the shape of our universe, or are we an intimate partner as well as a beneficiary of its peculiar structure and its awesome...
