Could it be that human existence depends on gravitational waves? Some key elements in our biological makeup may come from astrophysical events that occur because gravitational waves exist, a research team headed by John R. Ellis of Kings College London suggests.Seems farfetched, but interesting anyway. Here is the paper.In particular, iodine and bromine are found on Earth thanks to a particular nuclear process that happens when neutron stars collide. In turn, orbiting neutron star pairs inspiral and collide due to their emissions of energy in the form of gravitational waves. There may thus be a direct path from the existence of gravitational waves to the existence of mammals.
Humans are mostly made up of hydrogen, carbon and oxygen, with many additional trace elements. (There are 20 elements essential to human life.) Those with an atomic number less than 35 are produced in supernovae, implosions of stars that have exhausted their nuclear fuel and collapsed inward. The collapse results in an explosion that spews their atoms all over the universe.
But two elements are provided by other means—iodine, needed in key hormones produced by the thyroid, and bromine, used to create collagen scaffolds in tissue development and architecture. ...
Ellis and his colleagues calculate that the r-process has provided 96% of the abundance of 127I on Earth, an isotope essential for human life, and most of the abundance of bromine and gadolinium in the Earth's crust, plus all of the Earth's thorium and uranium and a fraction of the molybdenum and cadmium.
Update: Dr. Bee comments.
Yes gravity exists, and no we wouldn't exist without it, for the same reason you wouldn't be sitting in your chair with a handy dandy atmosphere to allow you to breath and a electromagnetosphere to prevent you from being cooked alive by stellar radiation without it.
ReplyDeleteNot sure why these scientists are writing highschool 'science fair papers though, Carl Sagan has already trod this ground on PBS long long ago. Surely they have something more useful to do with their vaunted intelligence besides pointing out gravity had something to do with human existence being possible.
Doing useful research doesn't seem to be a thing.