Nevertheless the existence of life-forms such as ourselves is an inevitable side-effect of those greater evolutionary processes
Nevertheless, the existence of life-forms such as ourselves is an inevitable side-effect of those greater evolutionary processes.The same laws of physics apply throughout our universe and many other universes besides. Organic (carbon-based) material occurs in profusion between the stars of a spiral galaxy such as our Milky Way. This carbon- rich material seems to be crucially involved in the processes that allow gas clouds to cool and new stars to form, so a universe that is good at making black holes will also be good at making carbon-based compounds. Those compounds will undoubtedly seed any Earth-like planet that forms with each new generation of stars.Astronomers calculate that there may be as many as 1020 planets suitable for life-forms such as ourselves.
We see the components of organic life everywhere in the universe, and chances are that most of these 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets actually are carriers of our kind of life, in the same way that Earth is a carrier of life. The birth of the living universe inevitably gave rise to the birth of living planets. Which still leaves physicists the task of explaining just how complexity arose in a hot universe expanding out of a big bang The end of science has been exaggerated. Indeed, you ain't seen nothin' yet.This is an edited extract of an article appearing in the May edition of `Prospect'. `The Life of the Cosmos' by Lee Smolin will be published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson on 29 May..
AS I was saying before being so rudely interrupted six weeks ago by that fellow John What'sHisName - you know, the grey chap, claimed to be Prime Minister, can't recall him just now - things have come to a pretty pass when the Special Branch can't find their way home. Keith Kyle, the veteran broadcaster, and his wife, Susan, had Sir Patrick Mayhew, the Northern Ireland Secretary, round for dinner at their Primrose Hill gaff in north London the other day. Special Branch detectives practically took the house apart brick by brick, sniffer dogs in permanent residence and so on. Came the night, and no Paddy. The Kyles were about to turn off the oven, when the SB telephoned. They had brought their man round, but taken him to the wrong house. Must be wrong, they said, there was a poster of Glenda Jackson, the Labour candidate, prominently displayed in the window Sorry about that. Where do you actually live? "No, no," explained Mrs Kyle gently.
"You've got the right place." Good job there were no snappers around.n THINK twice before writing to Neil Hamilton, the disgraced ex-member for Tatton. Nicholas Coleridge, managing director of Conde Nast, dropped the cash-for-questions hero a note in praise of a piece he had written in the Spectator, and got back a six-page screed of self-justification with an invitation to come up to Cheshire with his wife for the weekend Just imagine it, two days of Christine bending your ear. The weekend from hell.You can get some of the flavour of what it might be like from this week's Have I Got News For You, on which Cheshire's answer to Boadicea will appear. Or you could wait for the book, which Hamilton says he is writing. He will certainly have plenty of time to spend at his word processor Possible titles? How Green Were My Fivers Or perhaps Writs Crackers. Pity that Hemingway bagged For Whom The Bell Tolls.WESTMINSTER is agog with rumour that there will soon be a vacancy for the political editorship of the BBC Well, not quite agog perhaps, but steeped in speculation Which makes a change from peculation.