dd@beta.UUCP (Dan Davison) (08/07/87)
Isaac Asimov discussed this in a series of articles in his science column in Fantasy and Science Fiction a *long* time ago. I think it was the late sixties or early seventies. Basically, silicon based life is not quantum-mechanically impossible. The only problem is that the chain lengths cannot be as long as with carbon because they are much more unstable. For example, the long-chain fatty acid-equivalents of C20 molecules (Si20) would spontaneously break up. I do not recall the rest of the arguments, but this was the one that stuck. I'm pretty sure that there were additional important details but I don't recall them any more. dan davison/ theoretical biology/los alamos national lab/ arpa:dd@lanl.gov uucp: don't know yet./ Quote: "Great warrior? War not make one great"..Yoda
peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (08/13/87)
In article <8644@beta.UUCP>, dd@beta.UUCP (Dan Davison) writes: > Basically, silicon based life is not quantum-mechanically impossible. The > only problem is that the chain lengths cannot be as long as with carbon ...at the same temperature... > because they are much more unstable. For example, the long-chain fatty > acid-equivalents of C20 molecules (Si20) would spontaneously break up ...at room temperature... > I'm pretty sure that there were additional important details but I don't > recall them any more. All this proves is that silicon based life would have to operate at a lower temperature than humans. They may also need to use another solvent than water, or put up with crystallisation, because we're already operating at the low end of the usable range of hydrogen oxides. -- -- Peter da Silva `-_-' ...!seismo!soma!uhnix1!sugar!peter (I said, NO PHOTOS!)