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From: wetcw@pyuxa.UUCP (T C Wheeler)
Newsgroups: net.misc,net.religion
Subject: Time and the Amino Acid Motorcycle
Message-ID: <902@pyuxa.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 23-Jul-84 13:49:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxa.902
Posted: Mon Jul 23 13:49:28 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 24-Jul-84 04:10:08 EDT
Organization: Bell Communications Research, Piscataway N.J.
Lines: 34


I have been following this 'time enough' argument and can see a hole in
the 'not enough time' argument.  You guys are assuming that the trys
at combinations are taking place one after another, or in serial.  Well,
if you have this gigantic pot of soup in which these 'trys' are taking
place, wouldn't it be more of a parallel action?  Wouldn't 'biwions and
biwions' (sorry Sagan) of 'trys' be occurring at once, given a whole
ocean full of the stuff?  Only one try a second is begging the question.
Do raindrops fall once per second?  No, and neither do chemical reactions
occur on a serial basis.  Remember the old 'magic' reaction where a
liquid is turned instantly from clear to blue due to chemical reaction?
This is not a serial reaction, it is parallel.  I submit that the 
'search' for an amino acid would have taken place in a parallel format
which would have included ALL of the soup, not just one small portion
of it?  Now, all you guys go back to your calculators and figure out
how much soup there was, then add in your time factor.  In other words,
given a finite amount of soup, and the amount of time the universe
has been around (combinations could have been taking place even before
the formation of the earth), how long would it take to hit the amino
acids?  I think this puts a different light on the subject.

Further, once the first 'hit' is made (the first combination needed
in building the acid) how much shorter or longer is the time factor
in making the second 'hit' (the second combination factor needed to
build the acid)?  Could succeding 'trys' or 'hits' be shortened?  
Would the combination factors needed to put together an amino acid
be a dominant reaction.  That is, in many chemical reactions, there
are primary or dominant reactions and secondary reactions, right?
Would the formation of an amino acid have been a dominant reaction,
thus subordinating other reactions?

These are all just questions that have been bothering me since
this subject came up.  Anyone want to reply?
T. C. Wheeler