The end of life: it’s a reality that terrifies us and motivates us. Now cutting-edge science embarks on a bold mission to extend human life … Will death remain inevitable or can we live for ever? Morgan Freeman’s Through the Wormhole s2e9, Can We Live For Ever?
Anything and everything in the universe has the tendency to go from order to disorder … Nothing is immune to the power of entropy. ibid.
But could life also exist on a vastly different scale? Where planets act like single cells? And black holes reproduce the DNA of space itself? Could the secrets of the cosmos lie not in physics but in biology? Is the universe alive? Morgan Freeman’s Through the Wormhole s3e3: Is the Universe Alive?
What does it really mean to be alive? ibid.
The laws of physics we know have been fine-tuned in order to keep the cosmos fertile for its own reproduction. ibid.
A collection of chemicals with a mysterious spark of life. Morgan Freeman’s Through the Wormhole s4e2: When Does Life Begin?
When does the first spark of consciousness happen? ibid.
Even a three-year-old is not yet fully self-aware. ibid.
What is the meaning of life? ... Are we architects of our own fate, or is life just a series of random accidents? Is our existence just a freak of nature or are we here for a reason? Morgan Freeman’s Through the Wormhole s6e3: Are We Here for a Reason?
Did we humans also turn ourselves into a domestic species? ibid.
Life may not have one unifying purpose, but that shouldn’t stop us all searching for it. ibid.
I’m sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It’s just been too intelligent to come here. Arthur C Clarke, November 1996
Life exists in the universe only because the carbon atom possesses certain exceptional properties. James Jeans, An Introduction to the Kinetic Theory of Gases
Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence. Alan Wilson Watts
Finally, from what we now know about the cosmos, to think that all this was created for just one species among the tens of millions of species who live on one planet circling one of a couple of hundred billion stars that are located in one galaxy among hundreds of billions of galaxies, all of which are in one universe among perhaps an infinite number of universes all nestled within a grand cosmic multiverse, is provincially insular and anthropocentrically blinkered. Which is more likely? That the universe was designed just for us, or that we see the universe as having been designed just for us? Michael Shermer, Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design
Life is but a momentary glimpse of the wonder of this astonishing universe, and it is sad to see so many dreaming it away on spiritual fantasy. Andy Mulcahy
Suns are extinguished or become corrupted, planets perish and scatter across the wastes of the sky; other suns are kindled, new planets formed to make their revolutions or describe new orbits, and man, an infinitely minute part of a globe which itself is only an imperceptible point in the immense whole, believes that the universe is made for himself. Baron D’Holbach
In 1953 a British and American scientist working together in Cambridge announced they had discovered the structure of DNA. It confirmed Darwin’s theory that all life is linked by common decent. Including humans. Andrew Marr, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, BBC 2009
All this long human story, most passionate and tragic in the living, was but an unimportant, a seemingly barren and negligible effort, lasting only for a few moments in the life of the galaxy. When it was over, the host of the planetary systems still lived on, with here and there a casualty, and here and there among the stars a new planetary birth, and here and there a fresh disaster. Olaf Stapledon, Star Maker
There are only certain intervals of time when life of any sort is possible in an expanding universe and we can practise astronomy only during that habitable time interval in cosmic history. John D Barrow, The Book of Universes
Recognize that the very molecules that make up your body, the atoms that construct the molecules, are traceable to the crucibles that were once the centres of high mass stars that exploded their chemically rich guts into the galaxy, enriching pristine gas clouds with the chemistry of life. So that we are all connected to each other biologically, to the earth chemically and to the rest of the universe atomically. That’s kinda cool! That makes me smile and I actually feel quite large at the end of that. It’s not that we are better than the universe, we are part of the universe. We are in the universe and the universe is in us. Neil deGrasse Tyson
If we find Life on Europa, separate from Earth, no common origin, that would tell you that Life is probably abundant in every solar system in the galaxy. That would be a day in the history of scientific discovery whose consequences we might not be able to foresee or imagine. Neil deGrasse Tyson
If Mars formed life, then life on Earth could have been seeded by life on Mars, making every life form on Earth descended from Martians. Neil deGrasse Tyson
Why are there so many different kinds of life on this small planet? Neil deGrasse Tyson, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey II: Some of the Things That Molecules Do, National Geogaphic 2014
We are each of us a living universe. ibid.
Must we die? Are there beings in the cosmos who live for ever? Neil deGrasse Tyson, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey: The Immortals XI
What is the life expectancy of a civilisation? ibid.
Many were increasingly of the opinion that they’d all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans. Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, introduction
Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea. ibid.
Compelling reasons to colonise space are to see if we can expand the range of our activity beyond the Earth, or are we really confined to the Earth? I think that’s an important question we need to know the answer to. The second one is, what is the role of life? We have on this Earth a phenomenon called life. Is it destined to spread beyond the Earth? Chris McKay, AMES NASA laboratory
The question of life beyond comes to me strongest at night looking up at the stars and looking at all those little points of light and wondering, is this galaxy full of life or is this it? Chris McKay
Here was a planet with all the elements needed for life: carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, sunlight, and yet there was no clear evidence of life. To me this was a mystery story. Chris McKay
If we find life on Mars what we’re almost certainly going to find is microbes. Dr Chris McKay
Should we make contact or not? Dara O’Briain’s Science Club IV
Astrobiologists believe we will detect life on other worlds within the next few decades. And it’s probably reasonable to assume that Natural Selection as an evolutionary driver is a universal principle. ibid.
This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts, and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe. Jimmy Carter
When I consider the small span of my life absorbed in the eternity of all time, or the small part of space which I can touch or see engulfed by the infinite immensity of spaces that I know not and that know me not, I am frightened and astonished to see myself here instead of there … now instead of then. Blaise Pascal
And I saw how the stars of heaven come forth, and I counted the portals out of which they proceed, and wrote down all their outlets, of each individual star by itself, according to their number and their names, their courses and their positions, and their times and their months, as Uriel the holy angel who was with me showed me. He showed all things to me and wrote them down for me: also their names he wrote for me, and their laws and their companies. Enoch 1:33:2-4
The Sun gave us life, and with its death all life on Earth will be gone. If humans still exist, we’ll be somewhere among the stars. We think of the Sun as a constant presence in our sky ... It won’t last for ever. Death of the Sun, 2006