ABSTRACT
S teven Weinberg once said that the complexity o f physics today reaches very close to the edge o f the human intellect.1 Where would that leave us, the biochemists and biologists, who study a subject many times more complex than physics? Biology has invented physics, and with that invention it has been possible to chip one equation o f physics after another from the “ephemeral eternity” that marks our universe at each instant. Presently physics has reached a level o f power and sophis tication that makes it possible to predict, with fair confidence, when the universe began, how it started, how the galaxy formed that is the home for our sun and its planets, and where all o f it is flying at what speed. We even know at what time our planet will be burned up in the solar corona. From the slowdown o f binary systems we can calculate the power of gravity to the 12th decimal place,2 and we are beginning to uncover quintessence’, a different force that takes over when gravity diminishes in the distant power fields o f space.3 Is quintessence the gravitational pull o f a neighboring universe? You see our protein-based computer is tempted to spark off at the slightest cue and will work on a problem until a new concept can be tacked onto our quilt o f science.
