[extropy-chat] Scientists Confront 'Weird Life' on Other Worlds

[Alejandro Dubrovsky]

On Thu, 2004-05-13 at 17:09 -0700, Robert J. Bradbury wrote:

> Also Mike, if you have my PhysProp.xls spreadsheet and look at the
> BondStrength sheet you will see (if I'm interpreting it correctly
> that the C-C bond strength is almost identical to the Si-Si bond
> strength so I'm not quite sure why carbon is the basis for organic
> life while silicon is the basis, in part, for geochemistry (and
> semiconductors...).  A puzzle perhaps.
> 
I think the bond strengths are similar in the diatomic case, but carbon
does chains without losing strength, while si-si bonds drop to 226
kj/mol in that case.  Also si=si bonds are very unstable

alejandro