[extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles

[CurtAdams at aol.com]

In a message dated 11/13/03 11:32:45, eugen at leitl.org writes:

>On Thu, Nov 13, 2003 at 12:50:09PM -0500, CurtAdams at aol.com wrote:
>
>> Because the weak force is assymetrical, one form of each mirror image
>> is slightly thermodymanically more favorable.  The versions in life are,
>> actually, the favored ones.  However, the effect is tiny - IIRC 1 part
>in
>> 10^21 or something like that - and nobody has a good model for how that
>> could get things going.
>
>This effect is not observable in chemistry. It supposedly makes the material
>world possible, though, by virtue of providing an excess of matter vs.
>antimatter during Big Bang.

Not obervable by any direct methods, certainly.  The numbers I cited were 
based
on theoretical calculations.  Hypothetically, if life arose from a 
autocatlytic cycle,
the effects could snowball.  Seems like it would hard to get an effect so 
small to
survive inevitable noise, though.