The Origins Of Life And The Universe

The Origins of Life and the Universe The Origins of Life and the Universe Paul F. Lurquin COLUMBIA UNIVERSIT Y PRESS / NEW YORK COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS Publishers since 1893 New York Chichester, West Sussex © 2003 Columbia University Press All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lurquin, Paul F. The origins of life and the universe / Paul F. Lurquin. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-231-12654-9 (cl. : alk. paper) — ISBN 0-231-12655-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Life—Origin. 2. Cosmology. I. Title. QH325 .L87 2003 576.8
3—dc21 2002035166 Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper. Printed in the United States of America Designed by Lisa Hamm c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 p 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 T o Hubert, Ilya, Jacques, Jean, Lucia, René, and Victor, without whom I would know very little Contents Preface ix Introduction 1 The Meaning of Science 2 What Is Life? 6 Some Origins Models Before Science 8 Chapter 1 Foundations of the Universe 13 What Is in the Universe? 14 Physics Holds One of the Clues to the Origins: Relativity 16 The Next Clue: Quantum Physics 26 Forces of Nature and Elementary Particles 37 Conclusions 41 Chapter 2 Building a Universe 42 Cosmology: The Big Bang Model 42 The Genesis of Stars and Planets 51 Conclusions 60 Chapter 3 Life as It Is Today 62 The Universal Blueprint 63 Variations in the Blueprint 72 Metabolism and Energy Transactions 78 Life That Depends on Simple Molecules Only 85 The Cell’s Envelope and Its Skeleton 87 Conclusions 89 Chapter 4 Prebiotic Earth: First Organic Compounds and First Informational Molecules 92 Organic Compounds from Earth’s Putative Primitive Atmosphere 94 Space Chemistry and the Origins of Life 99 Ocean Floor Chemistry 102 VIII | CONTENTS Proteins and Metabolism First: The Iron-Sulfur World 104 Genetic Information First: The RNA World 112 Conclusions 116 Chapter 5 Life on Its Way 117 Lessons from Bacteriophages 118 Quasispecies and Hypercycles 120 Origin of the Genetic Code: From the RNA World to Proteins 125 Protocells and the Emergence of the DNA World 131 First DNA-Containing Cells and Their Evolution 134 Paths of Fast Evolution 139 First Eukaryotes 141 Conclusions 152 Chapter 6 Has Life Originated Elsewhere and Will It End? 154 Panspermia 155 Life Elsewhere in the Solar System? 158 Discontent with Origins Models 166 The End of the Universe, the End of Life 170 Conclusions 171 Appendix 1 A Graphic Representation of Special Relativity 175 Appendix 2 More on Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle 177 Appendix 3 How Do We Know the Age of the Universe? 179 Appendix 4 Eric Chaisson’s View of Cosmic Evolution 181 Appendix 5 Do the Universe and Life Have a Purpose and a Designer? 183 Notes 187 Glossary 195 Notable Scientists 199 Bibliography 201 Index 205 Preface Step 1: “To be is to do”—Socrates Step 2: “To do is to be”—Jean-Paul Sartre Step 3: “Do be do be do”—Frank Sinatra —compiled by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. M y fascination with the origins of life dates back to my undergraduate years as a chemistry major at the University of Brussels, Belgium, in the early 1960s. The city of Brussels had at that time a large bookstore that specialized in the sale of books from the Soviet Union. Possibly for propaganda purposes, the books sold there were very inexpensive (always an attractive feature for college students) and included titles from famous scientists like the biologist A. Oparin and the astronomer I. Shklovskii. I bought for a mere pittance, in French translation, Oparin’s “L’origine et l’évolution de la vie”