Sometimes when I am awake before sleeping, I like to imagine the earth revolving around the sun, the sun and solar system revolving around Sagittarius A*, the black hole at the center of our galaxy, and our Milky Way circling around our local galactic cluster as we continue to travel deeper in the expanse of the universal void. It is kind of like counting sheep.

This makes me wonder what, if anything, lay beyond our physical universe, all those things constituted by energy and matter and even our dark matter and dark energy. What is the universal void? Is it really infinite? That is difficult to even conceive, the idea of infinity. And where did the minute bit of matter/energy that resulted in the Big Bang/Inflation come from? It must have come from somewhere or can non-existence become existence? Apparently, the physical universe and time are postulated to have occurred simultaneously. This of course is only speculation not a scientific theory because neither of those can be truly tested at this time.

It’s crazy to even think about.

On top of that, when we look closer to home and we explore the evolution of life on earth, beginning about 4 billion years ago, about a billion years after the formation of the sun and about 10 billion years after the formation of the physical universe (as far as we can presently speculate), it is absolutely crazy that life began by the combining of primordial chemicals and energy combining to form living cells. Not life as we know it of course, that didn’t occur until noncompatible living cells of amino acids combined and evolved into proteins which eventually evolved into molecules that could combine and recombine.

Many scientists believe that RNA, or something similar to RNA, was the first molecule on Earth to self-replicate and begin the process of evolution that led to more advanced forms of life, including human beings. The theory is that small, simple molecules acted as templates for the production of the first RNA-like molecules. Many of these small molecules, or molecular midwives, would have worked together to produce RNA by spontaneously mixing and assembling with the chemical building blocks of RNA.

This is a boring read for you, I know, but for me it makes me wonder about the miraculous (not really a miracle but…) against all odds, of evolution that began from inert material to become conscious, sentient, aware, live creatures able of becoming viable and productive life forms. It’s crazy and amazing. What are the odds? There are no numbers that high. But we are here and you are reading this (maybe).

So be amazing today.

Wonder

Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.

Stephen Hawking

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