Page 75 - The Origin of Life and the Universe - International Conference 2016

The Origin of Life and the Universe

earliest moments of the universe all of the hydrogen would have been
fused into these heavier elements. Like there’s not a 5-nucleon element
and there's not an 8-nucleon element. And because of that most of the hy-
drogen is left in the universe it only at 75 percent of the atoms in the
universe are hydrogen. If there were a 5-nucleon atom or a 8-nucleon on
atom, all of the hydrogen would have been fused into something else. And
with no hydrogen, you get no water.
So if we take a look at how the strong nuclear interaction, that's what
determines how protons and neutrons join together. And the electromagnetic
that's what determines how charges interact. You can make a diagram and
don't get hung up on all the details of the diagram I just want you to notice
this. If you ask the question,
“Where do all the conditions
necessary for life to exist in
the universe all meet?” It
turns out if you're down here,
carbon is unstable clearly
that's not sufficient for one.
Up here you only have atoms
that move close to the speed
of light. Really not conducive
to life. Up here all of the pro-
tons would be joined together
and you would have no hy-
drogen left. It turns out that
when you do all of the cal-
culations the only place where
all the conditions for life is
matter this little teeny tiny
region. Of all the different
ways we could envision the
laws of physics being put to-
gether, only a small range al-
lows the elements that life

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