Adapted from "
A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson:
"To begin with, for you to be here now trillions of drifting atoms had somehow to assemble in an intricate and curiously obliging manner to create you....the atoms that so librally and congenially flock together to form living things on Earth are exactly the same atoms that decline to do it elsewhere. Whatever else it may be, at the level of chemistry life is fantasically mundane: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen, a little of calcium, a dash of sulphur, a light dusting of other very ordinary elements - nothing you wouldn't find in any ordinary pharmacy - and that's all you need. The only thing special about the atoms that make you is that they make you. That is, of course, the miracle of life."
I like how everything is simply described in terms of atoms.. So chemistry.. =)
i am who i am
7/15/2009 06:07:00 PM
