The Increasing Chemical Complexity of the Cosmos

The ancient origins of stars, planets and life may be viewed as a sequence of emergent events, each of which added to the chemical complexity of the cosmos. Stars, which formed from the primordial hydrogen of the Big Bang, underwent nucleosynthesis to produce all the elements of the Periodic Table. Those elements were dispersed during supernova events and provided the raw materials for planets and all their mineralogical diversity. Chemical evolution on Earth (and perhaps countless other plan...

 How Metric Measurements Relate

In metric, one millilier of water occupies one cubic centimeter, weighs one gram, and requires one calorie of energy to ehat up by one degree centigrade--which is 1 percent of the difference between its freezing point and its boiling point. An amount of hydrogen weighing the same amount has exactly one mole of atoms in it. Whereas in the American system, the answer to "How much energy does it take to boil a room-temperature gallon of water?" is "Go fuck yourself," because you can't directly ...

 Hydrogen Levels in the Universe

Our Sun is significantly enriched, having formed when the Universe was more than 9 billion years old in the plane of a spiral galaxy, one of the most enriched places in the Universe. Yet, when our Sun formed, it was still made out of — by mass — 71% hydrogen, 27% helium, and about 2% “other” stuff. If we convert that into “number of atoms” and treat the Sun as typical of the Universe, that means, over the first 9.3 billion years of the Universe, the fraction of hydrogen ha...

 Infinite Creativity was Stored in Hydrogen Atoms

Once the matter created by the Big Bang cooled sufficiently, the universe consisted of a vast cloud of hydrogen atom consisting of a single proton surrounded by a single electron—along with a smattering of slightly heavier elements, including helium (with two protons) and lithium (with three). The universe at that time was about the most boring place imaginable. It consisted of nothing but disembodied atoms drifting through space and the radiation left over from the Big Bang. Yet the potent...