If evolution happened then where did the original elements come from?

Question

If the first forms of life came from elements that were already in existance where did they come from? just wondering...

Answer 1

" If you were to take biology in high school instead of getting a permission slip to void yourself of an education, you would be familiar with all of this."

Too bad she's a biology major...

Even if there were elements just floating around out there, it would be next to impossible for them to just come together and create life. Take a bunch of watch parts, put them in a plastic bag and shake it until it turns into a watch... it's not going to happen. A "big bang" has never created anything good. This world is too beautiful and intricate to just *happened* to come into existence.

Answer 2

It is true. All heavy elements are formed in supernovae. Some stars are large enough that at some time near the end of their lifetime, the outward force of the fusion reaction is explosively greater than the inward pull of gravity. The star explodes and the energies within the explosion form all of the elements beyond hydrogen. The dust clouds from these explosions ultimately coalesce into discs and in the case of our solar system, form the planets.

The tricky and so far unproven perquisite for the evolutionary mechanism is that basic molecules have to form self-replicating molecules. The book "quantum evolution" does a good job addressing this issue. In this book the author describes how improbable it is to go from basic matter to self-replicating molecules. In fact, it is so improbable that it is essentially impossible. However, since we exist, we know it happened at least once. So given this premise, it is reasonable to say that we are the only life in the universe (unless life on Earth is ultimately extra-terrestrial). This was not an acceptable answer to the author, so he theorized that this critical life creating event may have been the result of a quantum mechanical mechanism. In simple terms, quantum mechanics can improve the probability that molecules miraculously form the self-replicating molecules necessary to seed the evolutionary mechanism. An interesting facet of this theory is that it leaves plenty of room for divine intervention; Quantum Mechanics is non-deterministic. Nihilists be damned.

Anyone who believes that creationism and evolution are mutually exclusive is wrong. That's true for people on both sides of the argument.

Check out the book "Quantum Evolution" for a more detailed argument. It is quite good.

Answer 3

After the 'Big Bang', all that existed was hydrogen in space. Some stars were big enough that they exploded as a supernova. The by products of these supernovas were the heavy elements (helium and all the other elements beyond it on the periodic table). These elements came together and formed planets (Earth). At some point in time, the elements formed successively more complex molecules. The jump from complex molecules to amino acids, which in turn become proteins and so on until self-replicating molecules were formed. How these molecules become a living organism from this point is not known for sure.

Answer 4

Hydrogen forms stars inside of which fusion creates helium which later fuses into heavier elements (e.g. carbon). The life cycle of the star varies depending on size. Some stars continue fusion until they become iron then go supernova. In the supernova even heavier elements are formed (e.g. silver, gold). So all elements except hydrogen likely form in stars.

As our solar system was forming the material collided and the gravitional attraction formed larger and larger objects until planets formed. The Earth was molten and the majority of the heavier elements (e.g. iron, nickel, some radioactive elements) ended up at the center and lighter elements ended up nearer the surface or in the case of the gases above the surface.

Much of the debris in orbit around the sun has been cleared out by the gravity of the planets but Earth has been struck by large objects as recently as 250,000 years ago and is struck by smaller objects every day. Most of those objects burn up in the atmosphere but some make it to the surface. Comets contain water and methane and that source might have played a role in the origin of life.

As for the question of where the hydrogen came from current thought is that matter and energy are interchangeable (matter can be converted to energy and energy to matter) but cannot be destroyed so perhaps matter and/or energy has always existed.

Physics, more specifically quantum physics, is now turning its attention to the question of what the most elemental components of matter are (atoms are made of protons, neutrons and electrons which are made of quarks and string theory then attempts to explain what quarks are made of).

On the one hand it is amazing how much we have discovered given that physics is a relatively recent human endeavor, but there is much to be learned. The thing that makes it difficult is that human beings evolved with senses and brains that are pretty good at comprehending the nature of objects from about the size of a grain of sand up to the size of a mountain but we're not very well equipped for dealing with things smaller or larger than that range. Similarly we're good at dealing with events that occur in 1 second up to perhaps a few years but struggle with faster and slower events. And of course we're limited by what we can see (visible light), hear (a fairly narrow range of vibrations). There's a lot going on that we cannot perceive.

Some of this we have overcome with technology (microscopes, telescopes, stop motion photography, radio telescopes) and better thought processes (logic, mathematics) but there's still much to be learned.

Evolutionary theory was an important milestone. For over 200 years now scientists have been putting together pieces of the puzzle - learning how chemical evolution could have lead to life, how biological evolution lead to the huge variety and complexity of life, and how (with the use of our highly evolved brains) memetic evolution is helping us understand what we are and how we came to be the way we are.

Answer 5

I have a theory....many say that God has always been here....others say that the elements of life have always been here....maybe God is the elements of life....the force...and nothing more....then again maybe not.

There is an ancient pagan story of the God and Goddess...their love made the 'big-bang' so to speak and everything that is grew and formed from their union. Funny how some of the most ancient religions support science and the "newbie" religions scorn it.

Answer 6

This is a cut and paste from another of my answers. Sorry.

Man says:
"The Law of Conservation of Energy states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, but can change its form.
The total quantity of matter and energy available in the universe is a fixed amount and never any more or less."

Einstein said:
e=mc2

or
m=e/c2

or
c2=m/e

Peace and Love

Answer 7

That part we have pretty down. You can make all the building blocks from the chemistry that was present. All you have to do is add a little lightning.

We don't have the follow up completely figured out. They will get it eventually. Here is some basic reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

Answer 8

This is just a variation on the question of where everything came from. It doesn't really have anything to do with evolution.

Answer: No one knows.

Answer 9

Google search the parsed phrase 'NASA accelerator amino acids' (without the qutations) and look at the abstracts that come up.

Answer 10

original elements evolution