In fact, death seems to have been a rather late invention in evolution. One can go a long way in evolution before encountering an authentic corpse.
George WaldRead
I tell my students, with a feeling of pride that I hope they will share, that the carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen that make up ninety-nine per cent of our living substance were cooked in the deep interiors of earlier generations of dying stars. Gathered up from the ends of the universe, over billions of years, eventually they came to form, in part, the substance of our sun, its planets, and ourselves. Three billion years ago, life arose upon the earth. It is the only life in the solar system.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes our cosmic connection through the elements that form life, which originated from stars.
George Wald poetically illustrates the profound relationship between humans and the universe by explaining that the essential elements of life, such as carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen, were formed in the cores of dying stars. These elements eventually contributed to the creation of our planet and the life that evolved on it, underscoring the idea that we are not just inhabitants of Earth but part of a vast cosmic history.
Themes
UniverseLifeStarsElementsCosmicConnection
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a science class to illustrate the origins of life and the universe.
More from George Wald
All quotes →I have lived much of my life among molecules. They are good company. I tell my students to try to know molecules, so well that when they have some question involving molecules, they can ask themselves, What would I do if I were that molecule? I tell them, Try to feel like a molecule; and if you work hard, who knows? Some day you may get to feel like a big molecule!
George WaldRead
Our challenge is to give what account we can of what becomes of life in the solar system, this corner of the universe that is our home; and, most of all, what becomes of men-all men, of all nations, colors, and creeds. This has become one world, a world for all men. It is only such a world that can now offer us life, and the chance to go on.
George WaldRead
Evolution advances, not by a priori design, but by the selection of what works best out of whatever choices offer. We are the products of editing, rather than of authorship.
George WaldRead
Nuclear weapons offer us nothing but a balance of terror, and a balance of terror is still terror.
George WaldRead
I think if a physician wrote on a death certificate that old age was the cause of death, he'd be thrown out of the union. There is always some final event, some failure of an organ, some last attack of pneumonia, that finishes off a life. No one dies of old age.
George WaldRead
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