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

[Acy James Stapp]

Alejandro Dubrovsky wrote:
> 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

There are a number of other inorganic polymers used in industry that may
be more stable than polysilanes (Si monomer). Unfortunately I don't have
any references here as to the bond strengths.

Polysiloxanes
   R
   |
-(-Si-O-)-
   |
   R'

Polyphosphazenes
     R
     |
-(-N=P-)-
     |
     R'

There are a lot of other inorganic monomers but these are the most
common flexible ones.