The application of computer science law in biology revealed an intriguing likelihood that life existed long before the Earth appeared. And perhaps, according to scientists and their calculations, appeared outside of our solar system.
Do you believe that?
Moore 's law states that the power of computers increases exponentially, while the cost of a semiconductor decreases exponentially every two years. However, we have already found out that Moore’s law works not only with semiconductors. But it works. If you take Moore's law and calculate the computing power over the past two years in the reverse order, you will find yourself in 1960, when the first microchip was invented.
A couple of geneticists decided to apply Moore's law regarding the speed with which the complexity of life on Earth increases. According to New Scientist, the results showed that the first organic life was born long before the Earth itself.
Researcher Alexei Sharov of the Baltimore National Institute on Aging and theorist-biologist Richard Gordon of the Marine Laboratory in Florida took Moore's law and replaced transistors with nucleotides - the building blocks of DNA and RNA - and chains of genetic material, and then launched the calculator.
The results showed that life originated 10 billion years ago, long before the Earth, whose age is estimated at 4.5 billion years.
Well, if mathematically life really existed long before the Earth, is it physically possible? And again, Sharov and Gordon say "yes, maybe." While our solar system was rolling into planet balls, long-standing ancestors of bacteria or even elementary nucleotides from an older part of the galaxy could pay a visit to our Earth on a comet or in another inorganic space garbage container - the name of this process is panspermia.
Scientists' calculations cannot be considered scientific evidence that life existed long before the Earth - there is no way to know for sure whether organic matter could have evolved faster at any of the moments in the history of the Universe. Sharov calls his work a thought experiment.
“Our arguments are solid hypotheses.”
The thought of Sharov and Gordon gives rise to a certain intrigue. On the one hand, “life to Earth” solves the old problem of the diversity of species in the Universe: if the complexity of genetics progresses at a constant speed, social and scientific development too, then the first aliens we will meet somewhere in the backyards of the Milky Way ... people. Or something like people. Another interesting fact speaks in favor of this.
“While astronomers are looking for aliens in space, other scientists, based on data from physics, biology and chemistry, are trying to guess what alien life might look like. Even Isaac Newton, for example, wondered: why do all the animals that we see around have two-sided symmetry (all of them have symmetrically located two eyes, two “arms” and two “legs”)? Is it a fluke or God's providence? ”- Michio Kaku,“ Physics of the impossible . ”
The study of Sharov and Gordon prescribes a theoretical and practical parallel between the origin of life and the relation of life to knowledge. Human evolution does not just happen at the genetic level: it happens epigenetically, or in the mind; as technology, language, or cultural memory are becoming more complex.
“The functional complexity of organisms is partially encrypted in the hereditary genome and partly in fleeting consciousness,” the scientists explain.
Applying Moore's law - a theory that was originally supposed to serve technology - to life, genetics do not simplify evolution, but rather recognize its extraordinary complexity.
And although some may be skeptical about Sharov and Gordon, scientists stand their ground.
“Spore contamination of bacteria from space seems to be the most plausible hypothesis that explains the early appearance of life on Earth,” they say. And if Sharov were offered a bet, he would bet 99% that life existed before the Earth. “But we need to leave 1% for an absolutely incredible chance that we did not take into account.”
In my opinion, it's time to think about aliens who probably speak English and can teach us something.
The article is based on materials .
Comments
Post a Comment