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THE THEORY OF (n e ar l y)
EVERYTHING
The big ideas and discoveries in science explained
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EDITORIAL
Editor Daniel Bennett
Managing editor Alice Lipscombe-Southwell
Production editor Robert Banino
Two simple questions
Commissioning editor Jason Goodyer Humans are curious animals. Curious in terms of our
Staff writer James Lloyd
Editorial assistant Amy Barrett behaviour, certainly but more importantly, we’re
Online editor Alexander McNamara curious by nature. We have a deep-seated need to
Online assistant Sara Rigby
discover new things and understand why the things
ART & PICTURES
we discover are the way they are. It’s this curiosity
Art editor Joe Eden
Deputy art editor Steve Boswell that brought us down from the trees and led us up into
Designer Jenny Price space, and at the heart of it are two simple questions. Questions that,
Picture editor James Cutmore
despite the best attempts of our brightest minds, we still can’t quite
PRESS AND PUBLIC RELATIONS
Press officer Carolyn Wray
answer. Where did we come from? And where are we going? Science
carolyn.wray@immediate.co.uk has brought us closer than anything else to getting viable, and
PRODUCTION verifiable, answers to those questions. But we’re still a long way
Production director Sarah Powell from having the full story and so the search for answers continues.
Production co-ordinator Katty Skardon
Reprographics Tony Hunt, Chris Sutch That search is not in vain, though. Looking for answers to these
PUBLISHING
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asked them to explain how we’ve arrived at our current
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NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave

Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) was
GETTY
used to help determine the age

of the Universe (p12)
BBC SCIENCE FOCUS MAGAZINE COLLECTION 3

CONTENTS 32
Discover how Democritus set us on a path
towards an atomic theory of the Universe
08The story of the Universe from

the Big Bang to the present day
THE FUNDAMENTALS THE FUNDAMENTALS THE NEXT BIG STEPS

OF PHYSICS OF LIFE FOR SCIENCE
08 The Story of the Universe 50 The Origin of Life 80 The Future of Genetics
16 The Composition of Stars 56 The Structure of DNA 83 Synthetic Biology Breakthroughs
22 Measuring the Speed of Light 62 The Composition of Human Cells 86 Searching for Dark Matter
28 The Nature of Gravity 68 The Theory of Evolution 90 The Existence of Black Holes
32 The Structure of the Atom 74 The History of Brain Research 96 The End of the Universe
38 The Structure of the Periodic Table
43 Understanding Quantum Physics
4 BBC SCIENCE FOCUS MAGAZINE COLLECTION

83
Synthetic biology breakthroughs
that could change the world
56 The scientists who discovered

the structure of DNA
NASA, GETTY X2, SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY, CORBIS
22
68
How Darwin helped develop
Measuring the
speed of light
the theory of evolution
74
How we uncovered the
mysteries of the brain
The hunt to find the

truth about dark matter 86
The compact muon solenoid

detector is designed to see
a wide range of particles
and phenomena produced in
high-energy collisions in the
Large Hadron Collider at CERN
CERN
6
THE FUNDAMENTALS OF
PHYSICS
The Story of the UNIVERSE 08
The Composition of STARS 16
Measuring the Speed of LIGHT 22
The Nature of GRAVITY 28
The Structure of the ATOM 32
Constructing the PERIODIC TABLE 38
Understanding QUANTUM PHYSICS 43 7
T H E F U N D A M E N TA L S O F P H Y S I C S
THE STORY OF
THE UNIVERSEFrom the Big Bang to the formation of the Solar System,
Dr Stuart Clark and Dr Elizabeth Pearson reveal the birth of
the Universe and the history of its life in six chapters
T
he year 2009 could go down in the early Universe that Planck has CHAPTER 1: THE BIG BANG
the astronomical textbooks as recorded – a region that looks The very moment of the Big Bang
the one when a revolution in our significantly colder than current remains shrouded in as much mystery
understanding of the Universe began. theories allow. Indeed, the as ever. It’s the point at which the
The protagonist at the centre of this temperature pattern across the whole Universe began – space and time were
upheaval was not a person but a Universe looks strangely lopsided. formed and all the matter and energy
machine: a space probe called Planck. Discoveries such as these are that we see around us somehow came
Named after the great German shedding new light on the history of into existence. Data from the Planck
physicist Max Planck, the spacecraft the Universe and revealing more of the space probe indicates this happened
was launched by the European Space story of how we arrived at the cosmos 13.82 billion years ago. Initially, there
Agency that year and was tasked with we see around us today. were no stars or galaxies, just a hot,
detecting the ‘blueprint’ of the dense sea of particles and radiation.
Universe – capturing a snapshot of the Immediately after the Big Bang,
seeds of the stars and galaxies that space began to expand, spreading out
surround us today. matter and energy. The trouble is the
Prior to its launch, cosmologists had theory that we use to understand the
spent over a century constructing expansion, Einstein’s Theory of
mathematical theories to describe the General Relativity, doesn’t work at the
story of the Universe, from the earliest extreme densities of the Big Bang, so
moments to the present day. But we are searching for a way to extend it.
analysis of the data returned by Planck The best template is quantum
has revealed a number of plot holes theory, which deals with the physics
– or ‘anomalies’ as the scientists call of the very small and provides a basis
them – that don’t seem to fit the story. for all the forces of nature, except
For one thing, data from Planck gravity. To investigate such a theory,
indicates that the Universe is older scientists must turn to the Large
than expected by about 50 million Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in
years. The Universe also contains Switzerland, which recreates the
more of the mysterious dark matter conditions thought to have been
and fewer atoms than previously present in the Universe a fraction of a
thought. And while these two things second after the Big Bang.
may sound serious, in reality they are “The LHC gives us a mini-Universe
CERN, GETTY
the least of a cosmologist’s worries. in the laboratory,” says Dr Anupam

Much more troubling is the so- The Large Hadron Collider is used to recreate conditions Mazumdar, a cosmologist at the
called ‘cold spot’ in the radiation from in the moments immediately after the Big Bang University of Groningen. 5

The Big Bang saw the Universe

rapidly expand out of a single,
incredibly dense spot. The
heat from its ‘birth’ is still
detectable today, almost
14 billion years later
IN A
NUTSHELL
How the Universe began was
one of the biggest questions facing
science. Over the course of the 20th
century, a series of astronomical
observations and fortuitous
physics experiments finally
verified the Big
Bang theory.
THE FUNDAMENTALS OF PHYSICS
The fundamental elements of the

Universe burst out from the Big Bang
(bottom). As they spread, and cooled, Alan Guth, a particle physicist from
they gradually coalesced to form the the Massachusetts Institute of
planets and galaxies we know today Technology, it postulated that, right
after the Big Bang, a period of
extraordinary expansion took place.
In the blink of an eye, the Universe
grew by a factor of at least 1,060. This
would smooth out any large-scale
deviation across the Universe, making
it appear uniform. Only the smallest
fluctuations in the density of matter
and energy would remain, the
cosmologists theorised. Remarkably,
these fluctuations were found in 1989
by NASA’s Cosmic Background
Explorer (COBE) satellite and they
amount to no more than one part in
100,000. They are the seeds from
which the galaxies have grown.
The Planck probe measured these
fluctuations in greater detail. It split
the sky into an image made up of a
billion pixels and observed each one a
thousand times during its three-year
mission. This produced a map of the
sea of microwaves that bathe space
– the cosmic microwave background
(CMB) – unlike anything that had
been seen before.
It’s these subtle fluctuations in this
radiation left over from the Big Bang
that provide astronomers with their
blueprint of the early Universe – the
distribution of matter and energy a
fraction of a second after the Big Bang.
As soon as the data from Planck was
released, problems appeared that the
cosmological community are still
attempting to solve.
For example, there is a suspiciously
large cold spot, which suggests that a
vast clump of matter was present in
the early Universe and it’s much
denser than inflation can explain.
5 While the experiments involving CHAPTER 2: INFLATION More troubling is that one side of the
the LHC can show what particles were 10-35 seconds after the Big Bang Universe has fluctuations that appear
prevalent in the primordial Universe, Until the Planck probe, almost every stronger than the other, indicating an
theoreticians then have to form a observation of the Universe’s largest uneven distribution of matter across
theory to understand them. scales had suggested that it is almost the expanse of space.
String theory is a possible quantum uniform. Sure, there are clusters of “This is very strange,” says Dr
theory of gravity, but it is unclear galaxies and huge voids, but even George Efstathiou, Professor of
SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
whether it bears any resemblance to these are comparatively small when Astrophysics at the University of
reality, because the mathematics are the Universe is considered as a whole. Cambridge and a member of the
currently unable to predict anything As a result, cosmologists had Planck science team. “I think that if
that can be tested in a lab or observed. developed a mathematical framework there really is anything to this, you
For now, the moment of the Big Bang called inflation to explain the have to question how that fits in with
remains terra incognita. uniformity. First proposed in 1980 by inflation. It’s really puzzling.”

THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSE
But it may not spell the end for the CHAPTER 3: PARTICLE CREATION
theory of inflation just yet. “My gut 1 minute after the Big Bang
instinct is that these anomalies point At one minute old, the entire Universe
to a more specific model of inflation,” resembled the interior of a star – but
says Dr Rose Lerner, a cosmologist at on a vast scale. Particles that would
the University of Helsinki in Finland, become the nuclei of all the atoms
who works independently of the in the Universe were built in this
Planck consortium. cauldron. Mostly these were single
Another solution to the anomalies, protons that would become hydrogen,
according to Prof Matthew Kleban of but around a quarter of the particles
New York University, is that during transformed into helium nuclei,
the sudden expansion that happened containing two protons and two
during inflation, our Universe neutrons. Trace amounts of lithium
A map of the Cosmic Microwave Background
slammed into a neighbouring one. and beryllium were also produced. – the afterglow radiation of the Big Bang
This sent shockwaves rippling The evidence for all of this furious
through our cosmos that imprinted activity is all around us today in the
the anomalies we see today. If so, we chemical make-up of the Universe.
should think of them as a cosmic We know from measurements of the
bruise. Testing such a controversial radiation given off by our Sun and
idea, however, is very tricky. other stars that 98 per cent of the 5
THE KEY
EXPERIMENT
A baffling find by Arno
Penzias and Robert Wilson
that the Universe was
warmer than it should be
earned them a Nobel Prize
The Horn Antenna at Crawford Hill in New

Jersey was built for use with satellites, so
the shape of it was designed to minimise
interference from the ground and provide
the best possible measurement of the
strength of radio noise from the sky.
The nature of this radiation depends on
the temperature of the radiating object. The
amplifiers used in the receiver were cooled Robert Wilson (left) and Arno Penzias (right) in front of the antenna that fortuitously
to 4.2 Kelvin (-268.8°C) using liquid helium, picked up the heat signature of the Cosmic Microwave Background
and Penzias devised a ‘cold load’, cooled by
liquid helium to about 5 Kelvin, which was above. But in 1964 it soon became clear that Nothing made much difference. The mystery
used to calibrate the system. the radiation coming from the antenna into of the ‘excess antenna temperature’ continued
SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY, GETTY
By switching the antenna from the receiver was at least 2 Kelvin hotter than to baffle them throughout 1964.
observations of the cold load to observations they could explain. The pair did everything That is until the pair realised, with the help
of the sky, they could measure the apparent they could think of to remove any sources of Robert Dicke, James Peebles, Peter Roll and
temperature of the Universe (expected to be of interference, including cleaning out the layer Dave Wilkinson at Princeton, that what they
0 Kelvin), then subtract out known factors, of droppings that had accumulated in the were looking at was the afterglow radiation
such as the interference from the atmosphere antenna horn from a pair of nesting pigeons. from the Big Bang.

TIMELINE
1929
Edwin Hubble
discovers the distance
of a galaxy from us is 5 Universe remains in the form of first celestial objects. This was driven
directly proportional this primordial hydrogen and helium. by the gravity of ‘dark matter’ clouds
to the velocity implied
Only two per cent of the original composed of particles that formed
by its redshift. Georges
Lemaître had published atoms have been processed into shortly after inflation.
this in 1927, but nobody heavier chemical elements while The Cosmic Dark Ages ended with
had noticed. inside stars. the first celestial objects. The first
stars were purely hydrogen and
1931 CHAPTER 4: THE DECOUPLING helium, and some could have been
Lemaître writes: OF MATTER AND ENERGY thousands of times the mass of the
“We could conceive 380,000 years after the Big Bang Sun. They lived for just hundreds of
the beginning of the This is the moment when the radiation thousands of years before destroying
Universe in the form
detected by the Planck probe was themselves and seeding the Universe
of a unique atom,
the atomic weight of released into space. Until then, the with the heavier elements needed to
which is the total mass Universe had been a searing mass of form planets and life.
of the Universe.” atomic nuclei, lighter particles and In March 2013, the Hubble Space
energy. It had been impossible for Telescope pinpointed one of the
1948 whole atoms to form; whenever a
nucleus and an electron particle
Universe’s oldest stars right on our
celestial doorstep, ‘just’ 190 light-years
Ralph Alpher (left)
and Robert Herman bonded together, the torrent of away. Known as the Methuselah star,
calculate that the radiation smashed them apart again. it has an estimated age of 14.5 billion
leftover radiation from Now, the continual expansion of years – give or take 0.8 billion years.
the primeval fireball space had weakened the radiation so It’s only this margin of error that
should still fill the
Universe today, with a much that it could no longer break means it’s potentially consistent
temperature of about apart the atoms. This was a watershed with the supposed age of the Universe.
5 Kelvin (-268°C). moment because, with most of the This might make it seem as if the star
previously free particles now is older than the predicted age of the
1964 confined into atoms, it was as though
the fog cleared.
Universe, but it’s more of a quirk of
how accurately we’re able to measure
Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson discover
a weak hiss of radio noise coming from all In the same way that we are able to the age of a star.
directions in space. The following year, this see to the horizon on Earth on a clear The first black holes were those
is explained as the leftover radiation from day, the Planck probe enabled us to see found at the centres of galaxies.
the Big Bang. this radiation, which has spent in the Although a black hole emits no light,
region of 14 billion years travelling matter falling into its gravitational
across space while preserving a record clutches does heat up and emit
of the density of the various clumps of radiation. They would have ended
matter that became galaxies. It’s this the Cosmic Dark Ages as surely as
record that now provides troubling the first stars.
insights into the previous inflation. The first galaxies – known as
quasars – were voracious monsters.
CHAPTER 5: THE COSMIC DARK AGES Their feeding black holes gave out
1989 1 million years after the Big Bang
Initially, the decoupled radiation
as much light as their collections of
stars. Gradually, the black holes
Launch of the Cosmic Background Explorer
satellite (COBE), which detected tiny would have been visible to the human consumed all the matter in their
irregularities (ripples) in the background eye – not that there were any humans vicinity, leaving only the stars to
radiation, confirming the accuracy of the around to see it. But the continued shine within the galaxy.
Big Bang model. expansion of space stretched the
radiation into the infrared and then CHAPTER 6: THE FORMATION OF
GETTY X2, SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY, NASA X2
2001 the microwave sections of the THE SOLAR SYSTEM

The Wilkinson electromagnetic spectrum. 8.8 billion years after the Big Bang
Microwave The Universe became dark. The Solar System started out as a huge
Anisotropy Probe Even after a million years, there cloud of gas (hydrogen and helium),
(WMAP) launches, were no celestial objects, so no which collapsed and rushed towards
making precision
measurements that
sources of light. These were the the centre of the mass, fusing together
pin the age of the Cosmic Dark Ages. Slowly, the sea until it burst into life as the star that
Universe down as of atoms spread across the Universe we now know as the Sun.
13.8 billion years. began to form into clumps, pulling As the Sun was forming, so were
themselves together to become the the planets. Before our star was born,

THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSE
NEED TO KNOW
The cosmic terms

you’ll need to know
to understand
the Big Bang
COSMOLOGICAL
REDSHIFT
A stretching of light, or other
electromagnetic radiation,
caused by the stretching of
space between the galaxies as a
result of the expansion of the
Universe. This is not a Doppler
effect, because it does not
involve motion through space,
but is measured in units of
velocity. The cosmic
background radiation is light
The light from Pandora’s Cluster
from the Big Bang with a
– a group of galaxies in the redshift of 1,000.
deepest realms of the observable
Universe – has been shifted to the
red end of the spectrum due to
the expansion of the Universe
HUBBLE’S LAW
Actually first proposed by
Georges Lemaître, the law says
that the redshift ‘velocity’ of a
galaxy is proportional to its
“Planetesimals were the building blocks distance. So a galaxy twice as
of the Solar System. After a few million far away is receding twice as
fast, and so on. This does not
years of crashing together, these bodies mean we are at the centre of
the Universe, however. The law
began to resemble the planets” works the same way whichever
galaxy you observe from.
another larger one had died in a at what is now the outer edge of the MICROWAVES
supernova, filling the cloud with gas asteroid belt, temperatures were cool Microwaves are radio waves
and dust. This debris gradually formed enough for gases to form thick with wavelengths in the range
a protoplanetary disc – a huge, flat atmospheres around rocky cores, from 1-30cm. They’re used to
circle made up of hundreds of lumps creating the gas giants – Jupiter, study the background radiation
of rock and ice called planetesimals. Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. left over from the Big Bang, and
These planetesimals were the It wasn’t just planets forming, in the study of interstellar
building blocks of the Solar System. though; several moons did, too. Many molecules. On Earth they’re
After a few million years of crashing moons are former planetesimals used in microwave ovens, radar
and telecommunications. The
and melding together, these bodies captured by a planet, but a few had a
Universe is a microwave oven
began to resemble the planets as we much more violent beginning. When with a temperature of -270.3°C.
know them today. the infant Earth collided with another
Close to the Sun, temperatures were young planet, a huge plume of debris
too high for volatile chemicals, such was trailed behind. After a few
as water, to remain solid in any hundred million years, it melded
quantity. The initial protoplanetary together to create the Moon.
disc contained only a small amount By four billion years ago, the planets
of rocky solid material, so the four and moons had formed, but the Solar
planets that formed closest to the System still looked very different from
Sun were comparatively small. But, its current state. There were probably
NASA
600 million kilometres from Earth, many more planets than the eight 5

Left to right: the Sun,

Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars,
Jupiter, Saturn (not to scale)
“When comets crashed into the surface of the

early planets, water didn’t boil off immediately
but instead formed vast oceans”
5 we know today and they would array of elements left behind. During molten cores began to cool. The cores
have been much closer together. Earth’s formation, metals such as gold of the smaller terrestrial planets
Over time, the outer planets began and copper sank to the core, so the solidified; without the flow of metallic
to move slowly away from the Sun, deposits we find in the crust today cores, their protective magnetic fields
throwing the gravitational forces of must have arrived on asteroids and faded, leaving their atmospheres
the Solar System off balance. This comets at a later date. unshielded from solar winds. As time
caused several early planets to be Perhaps the most important delivery progressed, such differences between
thrown into deep space and, around to Earth was water. The early Solar each world became exaggerated,
four billion years ago, the remaining System was too hot for water to settle leading to the variation in planets that
debris was pelted against the planets. but, by the time of the Late Heavy we see in the Solar System today.
This period, now known as the Late Bombardment, temperatures had
Heavy Bombardment, left scars that dropped. When comets crashed into
can still be seen on the faces of the the surface of the early planets, water by D R S T UA R T C L A R K (@DrStuClark)
Moon, Mars and other rocky planets. didn’t boil off immediately but instead Dr Clark is an author, cosmology consultant
On Earth, such craters have been formed vast oceans. for the European Space Agency and a Fellow
hidden by the actions of volcanism After hundreds of millions of years, of the Royal Astronomical Society.
or worn away by the atmosphere. the planets had settled into their orbits and D R E L I Z A B E T H PE A R S ON (@EzzyP)
ISTOCK
The most significant relic left on our and began to grow. Volcanism shaped Dr Pearson is the news editor of BBC Sky
planet from that bombardment is the their surfaces while, deep inside, their at Night Magazine.

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THE COMPOSITION OF
STARS
Unlocking the meaning of features in the spectrum of sunlight
enabled us to identify elements present in stars. Dr John Gribbin
explains how it also gave rise to a new science – astrophysics
T
he philosopher Auguste Comte It started with the work of Robert university. It was the inspiration for
wrote, in 1835, that “there is no Bunsen and Gustav Kirchhoff in Bunsen’s work with the burner that
conceivable means by which we Germany. This is the same Bunsen now bears his name. The burner
shall one day determine the chemical whose name is known to everyone combines oxygen and inflammable gas
composition of the stars”. So much for who takes chemistry at school, thanks in a controlled way, producing a clear
philosophy. By the time Comte died in to the famous burner. Early in the flame. It’s an ideal tool for a chemical
1857, astrophysicists were well on the 1850s, the city of Heidelberg had pipes test in which substances are identified
way to finding out what stars are made installed. These would distribute by the colour they give to a flame.
of. Indeed, spectroscopy, the tool they inflammable gas derived from coal to
would use to do it, had already been households and businesses – and to All in the detail
invented decades before Comte made the scientific laboratories of the Bunsen originally used coloured
his pronouncement. filters to calibrate these tests, but
In 1802, the British scientist William Kirchhoff pointed out that it would
Hyde Wollaston was studying sunlight be possible to make a more detailed
by passing it through a slit to make a analysis. Together, they built an
narrow beam and then through a glass apparatus that included a narrow
prism to spread the beam into a solar slit for the light to pass through,
spectrum. By doing so, he noticed that a collimator to narrow the beam
the colours were separated by dark and a prism to spread the light into a
bands – two in the red part of the rainbow. Finally, an eyepiece, like that
spectrum, three in the green and two of a microscope, allowed them to view
in the blue-violet region. the spectrum. This was the first time
Wollaston thought these were all these components had been
simply gaps between the colours, but assembled into a single instrument – a
his discovery triggered the interest of spectroscope – although Fraunhofer
the German Joseph von Fraunhofer, had previously used a prism and
who was able to produce much more eyepiece combination in his work.
detailed spectra in the second decade Bunsen and Kirchhoff knew that
SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY, ISTOCK
of the 19th century. Eventually, he when different substances were put

identified 574 separate lines. Today, in the clear flame of a burner, they
all the dark lines in the solar spectrum burned with different colours. A trace
(even more than he counted) are of sodium, for example, turns the
known as Fraunhofer Lines. A clue flame yellow, while copper colours the
to their origin emerged in the same Robert Bunsen and Gustav Kirchoff found patterns flame green/blue. When they analysed
decade that Comte died, the 1850s. of bright lines in the spectra of heated elements the light from these flames using 5

IN A
NUTSHELL
A ground-breaking experiment
studying the spectrum of light
revealed the first signs of elements
making up the Sun. Later, a scientific
pioneer found that every star
in the Universe consists
almost entirely of just
two elements.
The Pleiades star cluster, also known

as the Seven Sisters. Thanks to
spectroscopy, we can identify the
elements it’s made from

Copper being burnt

in a flame from a
Bunsen burner. Copper
burns with a green/
blue flame in the
presence of oxygen to
form copper (II) oxide
5 spectroscopy, they found that each produced by the presence of strontium

element produced bright lines in the and barium in the blaze.
spectrum at precise wavelengths. The A few days later, the pair was taking
lines occurred in the yellow part of a break from the lab with a walk along
the spectrum for sodium, in the green/ the Neckar River, which flows through
blue part of the spectrum for copper, Heidelberg, discussing what they had
and so on. One evening, from their seen in the fire. According to legend,
laboratory in Heidelberg, Bunsen and Bunsen remarked to Kirchhoff
Kirchhoff were able to analyse the something along the lines of:
light from a major fire in Mannheim, “If we can determine the nature of
some 16km away and identify lines substances burning in Mannheim,
THE KEY EXPERIMENT

By studying the spectrum of the Sun, Robert Bunsen and Gustav Kirchoff mastered
spectroscopy and could see for the first time the elements that make up our nearest star
After their observations of the fire in the city sunlight. To do this, they reflected sunlight found that the dark line was made even
of Mannheim, Bunsen and Kirchoff through the flame of a Bunsen burner, that darker. Kirchoff quickly realised that sodium
wondered if they could analyse sunlight had been ‘doped’ with a little sodium, and in the flame was actually absorbing some
in the same way. They looked at the lines analysed its spectrum. They expected that if of the sunlight, and that therefore these
associated with sodium in flame tests, and both lines had exactly the same wavelength, particular dark lines in the solar spectrum
tried to find out if these bright lines exactly the dark solar line would be ‘filled in’ by the were being caused by sodium in the Sun’s
matched the corresponding dark lines in bright sodium line. But to their surprise, they atmosphere absorbing light from below.
In that case, the other Fraunhofer lines
must be caused by other elements
PLATE WITH THIN SLIT absorbing light. Kirchoff’s discovery was
presented to the Prussian Academy of
PRISM Sciences in Berlin on 27 October 1859.
FLAME
MAGNIFYING EYEPIECE
The spectroscope that Bunsen and Kirchoff used to study sunlight. In doing so, they discovered some of the elements in the Sun

THE COMPOSITION OF STARS
WHAT WE STILL DON’T

KNOW ABOUT STARS
The big questions that scientists are
we should be able to do the same still hunting for answers to
thing for the Sun. But people would
say we have gone mad to dream of
such a thing.”
Nevertheless, they turned their
attention to the spectrum of the Sun
and found that many of the dark lines
found by Fraunhofer were in the same
part of the spectrum – at precisely the
same wavelengths – as the bright lines
produced by various elements when
heated in the lab.
The implication was that these
elements are present in the outer layer
of the Sun. It was thought that, as light
from the hot interior passes through
this region, these elements remove
light from the spectrum at specific
wavelengths instead of adding bright
lines to it. Kirchhoff, in particular,
developed this understanding of
what was going on.
Nobody at that time knew precisely
how the lines were produced. But even
without that understanding, in the
1860s it became possible to find out
An artist’s impression of
what the Sun was made of – and, using a supernova explosion
the same technique, what the stars
were made of.
Referring back to their riverside What conditions made star formation possible?
conversation, Kirchhoff is said to
Initially, the Universe was too energetic for stars to form. But as the Universe
have told his colleague, “Bunsen,
expanded and cooled, it became possible for gravity to form clumps of gas.
I have gone mad.” Bunsen replied,
There’s a suggestion from the European Planck satellite that conditions
“So have I, Kirchhoff!” made it possible for stars to form within 500,000 years of the Big Bang,
but there is uncertainty about these early years. Space telescopes and
Stellar discovery cosmic microwave background detectors will help us discover more about
In the last decades of the 19th century, the early Universe.
astronomers were able to identify the
presence of many elements found on
Earth in the spectrum of the Sun and,
The mechanics of supernovas
with less detail, the stars. The natural Although there are theories on how supernovas work, there’s not enough
assumption they made was that the evidence to be sure that these theories are correct. As an example, neutron
stars often leave a supernova explosion at high speed, but no-one knows
overall composition of the Sun was
why the explosion should favour one direction only. Some of the most
rather like the overall composition of
useful supernova observations come from X-ray and gamma ray space
Earth. But this turned out to be wrong.
telescopes such as Chandra and NuSTAR, which constantly add data that
Stars are much simpler than that and
may help us understand these massive stellar explosions.
we now know that they (the Sun
included) are mostly composed of
hydrogen and helium with just traces Are there Population III stars?
of the other elements. Stars are classified either as Population I (metal-rich) or Population II
But at the beginning of the 1860s, (metal-poor). The older Population II stars contain fewer heavy elements,
nobody even knew there was such a because the young Population I stars gain heavy elements from supernovas.
thing as helium. Its discovery marked But cosmological models suggest that there should also be huge, ancient
the coming of age of solar – and stellar Population III stars, made almost entirely from hydrogen and helium, and
– spectroscopy. created soon after the Big Bang. These are yet to be detected, but the James
Webb Space Telescope, set to launch in 2021, could change that.
The leading light in the discovery of
GETTY
helium was the British astronomer 5

TIMELINE
1802
William Hyde Wollaston
publishes his analysis
of astronomical spectra 5 Norman Lockyer. His greatest (Cambridge did not award degrees to
in the Philosophical achievement came on 20 October women until 1948). So, in 1923, she left
Transactions of the 1868 when he analysed light from for the United States. Just two years
Royal Society. He was the the outer layers of the Sun with a new later, she produced a brilliant thesis
first person to notice the
presence of dark bands in the spectroscopic instrument. These and established that the Sun is made
Sun’s spectrum. observations followed hot on the heels mainly of hydrogen. But, in a sign
of a spectroscopic study of the outer of the times, the idea was not fully
1814 layers of the Sun during an eclipse
visible from India on 18 August that
accepted until two male astronomers
came to the same conclusion.
year. The observations were made by By the 1920s, physicists knew (as,
the French astronomer Pierre Janssen. of course, Bunsen and Kirchhoff had
With the Moon blocking out the bright not) that atoms are composed of a tiny
light from the surface of the Sun, he central nucleus, with one or more
could detect lines in the spectrum of electrons in orbit around it. Dark lines
Joseph von Fraunhofer begins an
the material just above the surface. He in a spectrum are produced when an
investigation of the dark lines in the
solar spectrum, which become known noticed bright lines in the spectrum electron absorbs a specific wavelength
as Fraunhofer Lines. He accurately of this layer of the Sun’s atmosphere, of light, moving to a higher energy
measured the wavelengths of nearly known as the chromosphere, level within the atom. Bright lines are
600 of these lines. including a bright yellow line, close produced when an electron drops
to but distinct from the sodium lines. down from one energy level to another
1859 Its wavelength was later measured as and emits radiation (in the form, we
Robert Bunsen (left) 587.49 nanometres. would now say, of a photon of light).
and Gustav Kirchhoff On 20 October that same year, Payne measured the absorption lines
detect spectral lines unaware of Janssen’s work, Lockyer in stellar spectra and showed how the
produced by strontium used his new spectroscope to observe temperature (in particular) and
and barium in a fire
raging at Mannheim, the solar atmosphere and found the pressure in the atmosphere of a star
16km away from their same yellow line. Both Janssen’s and affects the ionisation of the atoms
lab in Heidelberg. Lockyer’s discoveries were presented there. Ionisation is when an atom or
to the French Academy of Sciences on molecule gains or loses electric charge
26 October 1868. But it was Lockyer (see ‘Need to Know’, opposite). The
1868 who took things a step further by spectra of stars differ from one another
Pierre Janssen and Norman Lockyer claiming that the line must be not because they are made of different
independently discover lines in the associated with a previously unknown things, but due to different amounts of
spectrum of light from the Sun that element, which he called helium, from ionisation in their atmospheres.
do not correspond to
the Greek word for the Sun: helios. Payne unravelled this complicated
those produced by
any known element. This was a controversial claim. But pattern of hundreds of Fraunhofer
Dubbed helium, the in 1895, the physicist William Ramsay lines and worked out what proportion
element was not found that a previously unknown gas of different elements in different
found on Earth released by uranium produced a bright stages of ionisation had to be present
until 1895.
yellow line near to the sodium lines in to account for the observations. She
the spectrum. He initially called this calculated the proportions of 18
gas krypton. But when his colleague elements in the Sun and stars,
1925 William Crookes pointed out that the discovering they all had nearly the
SCIENCE & SOCIETY, SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY, GETTY X2, NASA
Cecilia Payne presents her PhD thesis line was in exactly the same place as same composition. But the big surprise
in which she provides measurements the one found in the solar spectrum was that the Sun and stars are made
implying that the Sun is overwhelmingly
composed of hydrogen.
by Lockyer, Ramsay realised it was in almost entirely of hydrogen and
fact helium. In effect, spectroscopy helium. Everything else put together
had predicted the discovery of helium made up only two per cent of the
1928 on Earth, 27 years in advance. composition not only of our nearest
Albrecht Unsöld also star, but of all stars. Most of the matter
suggests that hydrogen Payne the pioneer in the Universe was in the form of
really is the most common The next step was taken by Cecilia the two lightest elements – hydrogen
stellar element. A year
later, William McCrea
Payne. Born in 1900, she won a and helium.
(right), a research student scholarship to Newnham College, Such a notion was almost
at Cambridge University, Cambridge in 1919, where she studied unbelievable in 1925, but Payne
confirms the result. botany, physics and chemistry, but believed her results were correct. Yet
could not be awarded a degree when her supervisor Harlow Shapley

THE COMPOSITION OF STARS
NEED TO KNOW
Understand the
science of
spectroscopy
FLAME TEST
The flame test is a simple way
to determine the identity of an
unknown substance. A clean
wire loop is dipped in the
substance (a compound, such
as sodium chloride), then held
in the flame of a Bunsen burner.
The heat of the flame excites
the atoms (strictly speaking,
they’re ions), causing them to
emit visible light with a
characteristic colour: yellow
in the case of sodium.
ION
The spectrum of different stars are shown as horizontal strips: An atom (sometimes a
dark ‘absorption’ lines betray the presence of various elements molecule) that has lost one or
more of its electrons is
positively charged and called
an ion. The spectra of ions are
correspondingly different (in a
“Most of the matter in the Universe way that can be calculated)
from those of the ‘parent’
was in the form of the two lightest atoms. It is also possible for an
atom to gain an electron and
elements – hydrogen and helium” have an overall negative charge.
sent a draft of her thesis to Henry from the Sun. He found that the
STELLAR
Norris Russell at Princeton for a strength of the hydrogen lines implied SPECTROSCOPY
second opinion, he replied that the that there are roughly a million This is the study of the spectra
result was “clearly impossible”. hydrogen atoms in the Sun for every of starlight. In a hot gas,
On Shapley’s advice, Payne added a atom of anything else. The following collisions between fast-moving
sentence to her thesis saying that “the year, the Irish astronomer William atoms raise electrons to excited
enormous abundance derived for these McCrea confirmed these results using states. They then drop down,
producing emission lines. In a
elements [hydrogen and helium] in the a different spectroscopic technique.
cool gas, the electrons absorb
stellar atmospheres is almost certainly Although many details remained background light and are raised
not real”. But with the thesis accepted to be uncovered, by the end of the to excited states. Spectra of
and her doctorate awarded, she wrote 1920s astronomers knew what the stars reveal which atoms are
a book called Stellar Atmospheres. philosopher Auguste Comte had involved and therefore what
declared would forever remain beyond stars are made of.
Second opinion our comprehension – that the Sun
The book was enough to persuade and stars alike are mostly made of
astronomers that Payne’s results were hydrogen and helium, with traces of
almost certainly accurate. This change other elements in proportions that can
of mind was aided by the independent be measured using spectroscopy.

confirmation of Payne’s results by her
fellow astrophysicists.
In 1928, the German astronomer by D R J O H N G R I B B I N
Albrecht Unsöld carried out a detailed Dr Gribbin is a science writer and Visiting Fellow
spectroscopic analysis of the light in astronomy at the University of Sussex.

MEASURING THE
SPEED OF LIGHT It’s the universal speed limit and the key to making sense
of the cosmos. But just how were scientists able to deduce
how fast light can travel? Frank Close investigates
A
ncient Greek mathematician ideas to support the theory that light was carried out by his students in
Euclid believed that sight travels at a very high speed, faster 1667. No time delay was detected,
occurs because the eye emits than sound but finite. The idea that confirming the prejudice that light
light. Hero of Alexandria pronounced light travels infinitely fast in empty travels infinitely fast.
that light must travel at infinite speed space, but slows down in a medium, With our modern knowledge of
as distant stars appear the instant that was also believed at that time. light’s speed, we know it would have
one’s eyes open. And, in the 11th As late as the 17th century, taken about one hundred-thousandth
century, the Basran mathematician luminaries, such as Johannes Kepler of a second for it to make the round
Alhazen wrote his Book of Optics in and René Descartes, insisted that light trip. That’s less than the reaction time
which he argued that light moves from travels infinitely fast. Kepler argued of the observers, hence their inability
object to eye with a finite speed that that this must be so, as empty space to measure any delay – the distances
varies depending on the medium would offer no resistance to its involved were simply too small. By
through which it passes. So for passage. Descartes based his contrast, the distances between the
example light moves more slowly arguments on observation: during a planets are so large that light takes
through water and glass than it does lunar eclipse the Sun, Earth and Moon several minutes to travel between
through air. would be noticeably out of alignment them. All you need is some reference
Ideas continued to flow. In the 13th if light travelled at a finite speed – and against which events can be measured.
century, Roger Bacon used Alhazen’s the absence of such misalignment
convinced him that light travels International partners
instantaneously. In Paris, Giovanni Cassini had been
It was around this time that the observing Jupiter’s moons, which
first attempts to make a direct disappear behind the planet as they
measurement were made. In 1629, orbit it. His measurements varied and
the Dutch philosopher Isaac he attributed this variation to light
Beeckman proposed an having a finite speed. Danish
ADILNOR COLLECTION/WIKIPEDIA, ISTOCK
experiment wherein the flash astronomer Ole Rømer joined Cassini

of a cannon was reflected by a and, in 1676, noticed that the time that
mirror about a mile away and the Jupiter’s innermost moon Io, takes to
time lapse measured. Galileo reappear is less when the Earth is
independently proposed a similar approaching Jupiter than when it’s
experiment, involving the receding from it.
uncovering of a lit lantern, which This confirmed Cassini’s conjecture
that when Earth is approaching
Alhazen’s Book of Optics, a key Jupiter, it has moved nearer while
medieval science text the light is en route and so the total 5

IN A
NUTSHELL
How fast light can travel is a
question that scientific minds have
been grappling with since ancient
Greece. Today we can measure the
speed of light very precisely, but
it took hundreds of years and
many theories to get to
where we are now.
you as you walk forwards – you have

to tip your umbrella to keep dry. Walk
in the opposite direction and the
origin of the raindrops now also
appears to be in the opposite direction.
Now think of the falling rain as light
travelling from a distant star and your
motion being that of Earth through the
heavens. The apparent position of a
star varies during the year due to this
phenomenon, known as aberration.
James Bradley, the Astronomer
Royal, discovered this phenomenon in
1729. He made measurements of a star
in the constellation Draco and found
that its position moved first south and
then north on a six-month cycle. The
motion was little more than 1/100th of
a degree, but this could be seen easily
enough with 18th-century equipment.
From this, Bradley deduced that light
travels about 10,200 times faster than
Earth in its orbit, 295,000km/s, an
estimate that is within about two per
cent of the modern value.
Back down to Earth

To determine high speed requires
either access to large a distance, as in
astronomy, or the ability to measure
The Draco constellation. From very small time intervals. The French
noting the movement of one of its physicist Hippolyte Louis Fizeau in
stars, 18th-century astronomer James
Bradley deduced a speed for light
1849 found a way to do this on Earth.
Fizeau shone light between the teeth
of a rapidly rotating wheel. A mirror
five miles away reflected the light
“The apparent 5 distance for the light to travel is less.
Hence it arrives relatively early.
back. If the light passed through a gap,
it would be seen, but if it hit a tooth
position of a Conversely, when we are travelling between gaps, darkness would ensue.
away, the light has to travel further He varied the speed of rotation and
star varies and arrives relatively late. Rømer’s from this was able to determine how
measurements – along with his long the light had taken to make the
during the discovery of the correlation with round trip. Knowing the distance to
year, due to a Earth’s motion – caused him to be
credited with the discovery. In 1690,
the remote mirror, he was able to infer
the speed, some 313,000km/s. In 1862,
phenomenon Dutch mathematician Christiaan Léon Foucault used a similar idea, but
Huygens used this to estimate a speed with rotating mirrors to determine the
known as for light of around 220,000km/s, about angle through which the light had
aberration” 70 per cent of the modern value.
The next step in the story again
been deflected. He found a speed of
299,796km/s, remarkably close to the
involves astronomy, in this instance modern value of 299,792.46km/s.
the aberration of light, which may be In 1865, the Scottish physicist James
illustrated by a familiar phenomenon: Clerk Maxwell published his work on
keeping dry as you move through electromagnetic waves, in which light
falling rain. Rain that is falling is a wave of electric and magnetic
ALAMY
vertically when you’re at rest appears fields. In any electromagnetic wave,

to be falling from a point in front of an electric field disappears and a 5

MEASURING THE SPEED OF LIGHT
“In 1690, Dutch mathematician Christiaan Huygens

used this to estimate a speed for light of around
220,000km/s, about 70 per cent of the modern value”
THE KEY EXPERIMENT

How observing the movement of Jupiter’s moons provided 17th-century astronomers
Giovanni Cassini and Ole Rømer with an early indication of the speed of light
Io, the innermost moon of Jupiter, orbits period the Earth had moved. Therefore, the Rømer made a long series of
that planet every 42.5 hours. Viewed from distance travelled from Jupiter to Cassini’s measurements that established this, as
Earth, Io periodically disappears behind telescope would vary from one eclipse to well as leading to an estimate of light’s
Jupiter and reappears later. It was thought another, depending on whether Earth was speed to be in excess of 220,000km/s. For
that the time between eclipses would moving towards or away from Jupiter. many, this was so unimaginably fast as to
be the same. Cassini seems not to have trusted his be regarded as infinite and Rømer’s ideas
However, when Giovanni Cassini made intuition, but his assistant, Ole Rømer, were not universally believed.
measurements around the year 1671, the performed his own measurements. When It was not until 1729 when Astronomer
results kept changing. He realised that these were combined with Cassini’s, Rømer Royal James Bradley measured the speed
this could be due to light taking time to realised that the variations correlated with of light by means of stellar aberration that
travel from Jupiter to Earth, during which the relative motion of Earth and Jupiter. Rømer’s theory was finally accepted.
IO DISTANCE LIGHT TRAVELS
EARTH
SUN
JUPITER
In the top diagram, Earth’s orbit around the Sun

puts it far from Jupiter. Later in its orbit, Earth is
closer (below) so light has less distance to travel,
shortening the interval between eclipses of Io
EARTH
IO DISTANCE LIGHT TRAVELS
SUN
JUPITER
Diagram not to scale

TIMELINE
1690
After Ole Rømer shows
that light travels at a
“Precise measurements of the speed
finite speed, fellow Dane
Christiaan Huygens
of light had led to profound new
calculates this speed to
be around 220,000km/s.
insights into the nature of space and
time, courtesy of Einstein”
1862
French physicist Léon
Foucault uses rotating 5 magnetic field emerges, and vice demonstrated that the speed of light is
mirrors to calculate versa, over and over. The resistance or universal, independent of direction. In
the speed of light at ‘stiffness’ of free space to the former is turn, this led Albert Einstein to insist
299,796km/s. called its electric permittivity, while that the ether does not exist (at least in
its resistance to the magnetic field is the form then believed) and to propose
1865 called its magnetic permeability. In
Maxwell’s theory, the speed of light is
his theory of Special Relativity in
1905. Thus precise measurements of
James Maxwell shows light to be an
electromagnetic wave, enabling its speed related to these quantities. The ease the speed of light had led to profound
to be calculated from known properties with which the electric and magnetic new insights into the nature of space
of space. fields can oscillate back and forth and time, courtesy of Einstein.
determines the speed at which the In particular, Einstein’s theory
electromagnetic wave travels. It turns implies that the speed of light in a
out that the product of these quantities vacuum is nature’s speed limit: no
is proportional to the inverse of the object that has mass can ever attain
square of the speed of light. the speed of light in a vacuum, while
So, in a sense, Kepler was right, any particles that have no mass must
centuries ago. If space offered no travel through a vacuum at this
resistance – in Maxwell’s theory, if the universal speed. But light is slowed
electric or magnetic ‘stiffness’ were when it passes through a transparent
zero – the speed of light would indeed medium, such as water or glass; it is
be infinite. But in reality, the electric possible for particles, such as an
1905 and magnetic ‘stiffness’ are not zero electron, to travel through the medium
The concept that the speed of light is and, when their values were inserted faster than light, but still below the
universal, independent of the speed of the
source or of the observer, forms the basis of into Maxwell’s equations at the end of absolute speed limit.
the Special Theory of Relativity developed the 19th century, they gave a value of Before the invention of the laser,
by Albert Einstein (above). 299,788km/s, then the most accurate independent measurements of the
estimate of the speed of light available. frequency and wavelengths of
In the USA in 1887, Albert electromagnetic waves were made
1972 Michelson and Edward Morley in the 1950s using ‘cavity resonators’,
A laser (below) is used to measure the
attempted to measure the speed of which gave a value of 299,792km/s
frequency of a particular spectral line
of a krypton atom. By combining this Earth through the ‘ether’ (a medium with an uncertainty of 3km/s. A
information with the definition of the then believed to permeate all space) modern demonstration is to put a
metre, the speed of light in a vacuum is by measuring the difference in the chocolate bar in a microwave oven.
measured as 299,792,458m/s. speed of light in two perpendicular Remove the turntable so the specimen
directions. They used semi- is stationary and it will cook fastest at
transparent mirrors, which deflected the points where the waves are most
BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY, SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY, GETTY
light through 90° while also allowing intense. The distance between two
some to carry on unhindered. By successive spots is half the wavelength
reflecting the two beams back along of the microwaves. Multiply the
their paths and recombining them, wavelength by the microwave
any difference in speed would show frequency (typically 2,450MHz, but
up by the two waves being out of phase check with your manual) and the
– a mismatch between their peaks and speed of light results, though with less
1983 troughs that would show up as a subtle
set of dark and light fringes, known as
accuracy than in the 1950s laboratory.
Modern large-length experiments
Light speed is made absolute at the 17th
General Conference on Weights and an interference pattern. involve sending radio signals to
Measures. As a result, a metre is now different spacecraft whose positions
defined as 1/ 299,792,458th the distance Onwards to Einstein in the Solar System have been
travelled by light in a vacuum in one second. Michelson and Morley’s set-up proved precisely calculated, allowing for
highly sensitive and, to their surprise, the gravity of the Sun and planets.

MEASURING THE SPEED OF LIGHT
NEED TO KNOW
Five key scientific

terms to help you
understand light
ABERRATION
OF LIGHT
An optical phenomenon
whereby a star appears to
move about its true position.
It is a result of the finite speed
of light and the motion
of the Earth.
ATOMIC CLOCK
This is the most accurate way of
measuring time we have. It uses
the frequency of microwave
signals that electrons in atoms
emit when they change
energy levels.
CAVITY RESONATOR
A hollow conductor blocked at
both ends, along which an
electromagnetic wave can
travel and be reflected back and
forth. A resonator of the correct
length will amplify a wave of
An atomic clock at a given frequency.
the UK’s National
Physical Laboratory
in Teddington ELECTRIC
PERMITTIVITY
An electric charge gives rise to
an electric field. The resistance
This enables the speed of light to second. The second can be defined to forming this electric field is
be calculated to an accuracy of 20 precisely using atomic clocks and the known as the electric
parts per trillion. remaining uncertainty in the speed of permittivity. It can be
Modern descendents of the light is due the accuracy of defining a determined using capacitors,
Michelson-Morley technique use a metre. As such, since 1983 it has been which are devices for storing
laser beam whose frequency is known agreed to ‘fix’ the speed of light at the electric charge.
precisely. After the beam is split into above value and to define the metre so
two paths and then recombined, the that there are exactly 299,792,458 of
interference pattern can be decoded to them in the distance that light travels
MAGNETIC
determine the wavelength of the light. in a vacuum in one second. So today, PERMEABILITY
The speed is then the product of this instead of measuring the speed of light The measure of how easily a
wavelength and the frequency. In relative to the space-time of the substance, including empty
1972, this led to a precision in the Universe, as physicists struggled to do space, becomes magnetised.
measurement of the speed of better for centuries, we use the speed of light The product of magnetic
permeability and electric
than four parts per billion. determine the latter.

permittivity equals the inverse
Today, advanced lasers and the of the square of the speed
measurement of time intervals using of light.
atomic clocks provide the most by F R A N K C L O S E (@closefrank)
accurate value of 299,792,458m/s, with Frank is Emeritus Professor of physics
an uncertainty of just one metre per at the University of Oxford.

THE NATURE OF
GRAVITY
What goes up must come down… But why that’s the case is a mystery that
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IN A
NUTSHELL
The ancient Greeks thought that
earth and water were drawn towards
the centre of the Universe, then
believed to be Earth. But thanks to
Galileo, Newton and Einstein, our
knowledge of this fundamental
force has come a long
way since the 4th
century BC.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Five great thinkers whose work was crucial in
shaping our understanding of gravity
ARISTOTLE 5 in their orbits and stopping them
(384-322 BC) from flying off in a straight line.
The definitive ancient All this and more Newton included in
Greek philosopher, his masterpiece, Philosophiae
Aristotle set the Naturalis Principia Mathematica,
agenda for science for usually known as the Principia. The
more than 1,800 years. book, originally written in Latin, is not
This is a pity, as his easy to read and relies far more on
theories – based on geometry than we would expect today,
reasoning rather than
GALILEO GALILEI but here we get the understanding that
observation – were
(1564-1642) the force of gravity is dependent on the
almost universally
This natural masses of the objects involved divided
misleading. Gravity, as
philosopher believed by the square of the distance between
Aristotle saw it, was
a tendency for heavy in the importance of them. This and his laws of motion
things to prefer the experiment and, as were enough for Newton to describe
centre of the Universe. a result, dismissed the way that planets and moons move
Aristotle’s ideas and the way that things fall when they
on gravity. Though drop. It was, without doubt, a triumph.
famous for being tried But Newton did leave one aspect
for promoting the hanging: how this strange force acting
Copernican model at a distance could work.
ISAAC NEWTON of the Solar System,
(1643-1727) Galileo’s greatest Gravity explained
The greatest English contribution was his
In 1905, Albert Einstein wrote three
physicist. Most of methodical exploration
papers that transformed physics.
his work on light, of mechanics and
These established the existence of
motion, gravity and motion, including the
atoms, formed the foundations of
calculus was done in influence of gravity.
quantum theory and introduced
Cambridge, though Special Relativity, which showed how
much was achieved
apparently fixed quantities such as
when he was confined
mass, length and the flow of time
to his home in
varied depending on your viewpoint.
Lincolnshire due to the
ALBERT EINSTEIN Two years later, Einstein was sitting
plague. He was later
(1879-1955) in the patent office in Bern and had
an MP, Master of the
Einstein was born what he described as his happiest
Mint and President of
in Ulm in Germany, thought. “All of a sudden a thought
the Royal Society but
though he was a Swiss occurred to me: if a person falls freely,
physics remains his
citizen from his teens. he will not feel his own weight. I was
most significant legacy.
He produced three startled. The simple thought made a
papers in 1905, while
deep impression on me. It impelled
working in the patent
me towards a theory of gravitation.”
ARTHUR EDDINGTON office, that would
What Einstein had realised was
(1882-1944) show atoms were real,
lay the foundation
that gravity and acceleration were
Born in the Lake
of quantum theory equivalent and indistinguishable. If,
District, Eddington
and establish Special for instance, you were in a spaceship
worked as an
astronomer and Relativity. His theory with no windows and found that you
astrophysicist in of General Relativity were experiencing a pull of 1G, there
Cambridge. When from 1915 is still the are two possible explanations. You
asked if it were standard theory could be sitting still on the surface of
true that only three of gravitation. Earth or you could be in space and the
people in the world craft could be accelerating at 9.81m/s
ISTOCK X3, ALAMY, GETTY
understood the theory per second – the same acceleration as

of General Relativity, due to Earth’s gravity. Your
Eddington is said to instruments could not detect a
have replied, “Who is difference. But if this is true, it tells
the third?”. us something odd about gravity.
If we imagine a beam of light

THE NATURE OF GRAVITY
NEED TO KNOW
Key terms used

when discussing the
nature of gravity
FUNDAMENTAL
String theory, also FORCES
known as M-theory, The four forces of nature:
is an attempt to gravity, electromagnetism and
reconcile gravity and
the strong and weak nuclear
quantum mechanics
forces. Between them, they’re
responsible for all interactions
between particles (and
crossing the accelerating spaceship, are granular with tiny divisions called between matter and light).
the beam will appear to bend to quanta. The expectation is that there
someone inside the ship as a result should also be a quantum theory of
of its motion. But since acceleration gravity, but as yet one has not been
INVERSE
and gravity are equivalent, the same established. For a while, it seemed as SQUARE LAW
light beam should also bend in a if string theory would provide the This describes a quantity that
gravitational field. Einstein had answer, but there is increasing gets smaller as the square of a
realised that gravity warps space, concern that this mathematically value gets bigger. For instance,
twisting it near a massive body so that driven concept will never make useful if you double the distance
between two bodies the
anything travelling in a straight line predictions, leaving growing interest
gravitational pull is reduced
curves around it. This is also true of in alternative theories such as loop by a factor of four.
an orbiting planet. quantum gravity.
In fact, his discovery proved
stranger still. While the warping of Gravity and us MASS
space explains the orbits of the Our modern understanding of gravity A concept introduced by Isaac
planets, it doesn’t tell us why the apple reveals that it’s far more important Newton to describe the amount
falls. There is no reason for something than the ancients thought. Gravity not of matter present. The mass of
to start moving. But it is space-time – only keeps things in place on Earth, it a body is what causes its
the mash-up of space and time that was also responsible for the formation gravitational attraction and
emerged from Special Relativity – that of the Solar System as it coalesced out doesn’t vary, whereas its
weight is the force of gravity
is warped by massive objects, and it is of a spinning cloud of dust and gas.
on the mass at a
the warp that initiates motion. The Experiments in space have even particular location.
mathematics to support all this is shown that gravity is essential for
fiendishly complex, but the principle living things – plants struggle to grow
is simple enough. with no gravity to direct their roots, RELATIVITY
Einstein had given Newton’s theory birds’ eggs need gravity to develop, Galileo observed that motion is
a framework, a reason for working. and human beings deteriorate in low relative. If we move at the same
More than that, General Relativity, gravity, losing bone density and velocity as something else, it
as Einstein’s theory became known, muscle tone. doesn’t move with respect to
made some predictions that were Gravity continues to keep hold of us. Einstein developed this idea
different from those Newton would some secrets. We don’t know, for in his theories of Special
Relativity (reflecting the effect
have expected – and experiments have instance, why it is so much weaker
of the fixed speed of light) and
verified that it is General Relativity than the other forces. Nor do we know General Relativity, which brings
that matches reality. how to bring gravity into the quantum in gravity and acceleration.
It seemed in many ways that the fold. But thanks to the work of those
theory of gravitation was complete. pioneers Newton and Einstein, this
Einstein’s development would be fundamental force is no longer a
used to predict everything from the total mystery.

existence of black holes to the way the
Universe changes with time. But there
is still a big gap in our understanding. by B R I A N C L E G G (@brianclegg)
All the other forces of nature are Brian is a science writer and author. His latest
quantised. They aren’t continuous, but book is Professor Maxwell’s Duplicitous Demon.

THE STRUCTURE OF
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IN A
NUTSHELL
Scientists have always probed matter
to uncover its constituent parts and
improvements in our understanding of
physics have allowed us to find ever
smaller components. By working out
what’s in an atom, we’ve built the
Periodic Table of Elements and
know which elements
are missing.
5 In Britain in the early 19th century, Measurements showed that, if all of By studying many chemical
John Dalton suggested that all atoms in the gases were to be used, the weight reactions and measuring the relative
a given chemical element are exactly of the oxygen would need to be eight amounts of the elements involved,
alike: the atoms of different elements times as much as that of hydrogen. As by the mid-19th century the relative
being distinguished by their mass. He two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen masses of their basic atoms had been
had discovered that the weights of the atom have combined to make a determined. Relative to hydrogen,
various elements involved in chemical molecule of water (H2O) it implies that atoms of oxygen, carbon, calcium and
reactions were always in simple one oxygen atom must weigh eight iron weighed 16, 12, 40 and 56 times
numerical proportions. The simplest times as much as two atoms of as much. This tantalising numerology
example involved the gases, hydrogen hydrogen. So an atom of oxygen is 16 was a hint that atoms of different
and oxygen, combining to make water. times heavier than one of hydrogen. elements may share some common
THE KEY EXPERIMENT

In his Manchester laboratory, the physicist Ernest Rutherford
and his colleagues found a way to probe the heart of an atom
Early in the 20th century, Ernest were deflected through very large angles. Rutherford realised that the positive
Rutherford noticed that thin sheets Instead of mica, Marsden used gold leaf charge in an atom is concentrated in a
of mica could deflect alpha particles that was only a few hundred atoms thick, massive and exceedingly compact central
(see ‘Need to know’, p37), which were and a scintillating screen to detect the ‘nucleus’, and that it was the repulsion
moving at 15,000km/s. This could only scattered alpha particles. To everyone’s of like charges that was deflecting the
have happened if they felt electric and amazement, he discovered that about one relatively lightweight alpha (the nucleus
magnetic forces far greater than anything in 20,000 alphas were turned back in their of a gold atom being some 50 times more
known. He mused that these forces might tracks. Rutherford famously exclaimed: massive than an alpha particle).
be present within atoms. Rutherford “It was as though you had fired a 15-inch The size of the nucleus relative to an
suggested that his colleague, Ernest shell at a piece of tissue paper and it had atom was famously compared to being
Marsden, look to see if any alpha particles bounced back and hit you.” like a “fly in a cathedral”.
BEAM DEFLECTED SCINTILLATING SCREEN

GOLD FOIL
BEAM TRANSMITTED
WITH LITTLE OR NO
DEFLECTION
RADIOACTIVE
SOURCE
At Manchester University,
Ernest Rutherford led
BEAM OF ALPHA an experiment into
PARTICLES LARGE alpha-particle scattering
DEFLECTION at large angles

THE STRUCTURE OF THE ATOM
CAST OF CHARACTERS
The pioneers who have peeled back the layers
of the ‘atomic onion’
ingredients, the atoms of the heavier JOHN DALTON
elements having ‘more’ of the mystery (1766-1844) An
material than the lighter ones. In other English chemist and
words: atoms are made of something founder of modern
even smaller. atomic theory. Born in
Cumberland, he moved
Mystery components to Manchester where
With hindsight, by the middle of he taught mathematics
the 19th century two discoveries held and natural
philosophy. He studied
the clue that atoms have an inner DMITRI MENDELEEV
the behaviour of gases
structure. First was the phenomenon (1834-1907) A Russian
and the atmosphere,
of atomic spectra. Here, when light chemist most famous
but his most famous
emitted by hot elements was split into for his Periodic Table
insights were with
component colours, characteristic sets the atomic theory of of Elements, which
of lines showed up, in effect an atomic chemistry, with he discovered while
barcode unique to each element. While which his name writing a textbook on
chemists used the phenomenon to is associated. chemistry in 1869. He
identify known elements and discover was twice nominated
new ones, such as helium in the Sun, for the Nobel Prize,
physicists found it too complicated to in 1906 and 1907, but
explain and initially ignored it. this was rejected
Second, the Russian Dmitri JOSEPH JOHN after claims that his
Mendeleev discovered that, when he THOMSON discovery was too old.
listed the atomic elements in order of (1856-1940) Better
their atomic weights, from the lightest, known as JJ Thomson,
hydrogen, up to uranium, elements he was born in
having similar chemical properties Manchester and
periodically reoccurred. His joined Trinity College,
celebrated Periodic Table of Elements Cambridge, in 1876.
He spent the rest of
contained gaps, which led him to
his life there and his
predict that further elements must
work on the properties
exist to fill them. The discoveries of
of gases and atomic
gallium, germanium and scandium, ERNEST RUTHERFORD
structure led to his
found in France, Germany and (1871-1937) The New
discovery of the
Scandinavia followed – you can easily Zealand-born British
electron, in 1897, and a
tell which was found where! physicist is famous for
Nobel Prize in 1906.
Dalton had believed that atoms were discovering the atomic
indivisible spheres. But by the end of nucleus, identifying
the 19th century, clues were forms of radioactivity,
and fathering the
accumulating suggesting that atoms
field of nuclear
have an internal structure. In addition
NIELS BOHR physics. Although
to spectra and the periodic table,
(1885-1962) A Danish he is best known
radioactivity showed that one element for his discovery of
could transform spontaneously into physicist who made
major contributions the nuclear atom,
another by emitting particles, a his 1908 Nobel Prize
to the foundations of
process known as transmutation. This was for chemistry
quantum mechanics
raised two questions: what were the and his discovery of
and to the theory of
constituent parts of atoms and how
SCIENCE & SOCIETY X2, ALAMY X2, GETTY
atomic structure. His transmutation of

were they arranged? the elements.
planetary model was
Answers came in 1897, when Joseph the forerunner of the
John Thomson found that electric modern picture
current is carried by negatively of the atom. He won
charged particles: electrons. the Nobel Prize for
Measuring the ratio of an electron’s physics in 1922.
charge to its mass, he found this was
very large and common to all elements
that he used. From this he deduced 5

TIMELINE
1803
John Dalton proposes that all matter is
made of indestructible atoms; that atoms
of different elements are distinguished by 5 that electrons are a component part has isotopes: ‘heavy water’ is the result
their weights and that chemical reactions that features in all elements. of a hydrogen atom having a proton
occur when atoms are rearranged. American Robert Millikan and a neutron.
measured the electric charge of the When Rutherford’s discovery of the
electron, which, combined with positively charged atomic nucleus
Thomson’s result for the ratio of charge and Thomson’s discovery of the
to mass, showed this ratio is large lightweight, negatively charged
because the mass of an electron is electron were married with the rule
tiny, only about 1/2,000th that of a that opposite electrical charges
hydrogen atom, the lightest atom attract, a seductively simple picture
1897 known. This led to two inferences: emerged of the atom as a miniature
Joseph John ‘JJ’ Thomson (above) discovers one, as electrons are so light, there Solar System. In this naive analogy,
the electron – a constituent of all atomic must be other more massive particles the nucleus plays the role of the Sun
elements. Negatively charged, it suggests in there too. And, two, as atoms have and electrons are like the remote
there must also exist positively charged no overall electric charge, the massive planets in orbit around it.
constituents to neutralise the atom.
particles must therefore be positively However, had electrons in atoms
charged in order to neutralise the encircled the central nucleus like
1911 electrons’ negativity. planets orbiting the Sun, obeying
Ernest Rutherford discovers the positively When Ernest Rutherford and his Newton’s laws of motion, they would
charged atomic nucleus following
assistants Hans Geiger and Ernest have spiralled into the nucleus within
SCIENCE & SOCIETY X2, NASA

experiments by Hans Geiger and Ernest
Marsden. He realises the nucleus is massive Marsden bombarded atoms of gold a mere fraction of a second. An atom,
and compact, and that an atom is mostly with alpha particles – massive, once formed, would self-destruct in a
empty space. positively charged particles emitted in flash of light almost immediately;
radioactivity – they found that most of matter would not exist. Something
them passed through, but occasionally was missing. The final ingredient was
1913 one would recoil violently (see ‘The the discovery of quantum theory: very
Niels Bohr (left) Key Experiment’, page 34). In 1911, small things, such as atoms, follow
creates a conceptual Rutherford deduced that the gold atom different laws from
picture of the atom
must be mostly empty space, but with those of Newton,
like a miniature
Solar System, where a dense massive central region, which explain the
‘planetary’ electrons capable of deflecting the alpha behaviour of objects
orbit a central particles. He called this the nucleus. that are large enough
nuclear ‘Sun’. The nucleus of a hydrogen atom is to see. Instead of an
the simplest of all, consisting of a electron being able to
1925-28 single positively charged ‘proton’. go anywhere in an
Erwin Schrödinger produces a quantum The nuclei of heavier elements contain atom, it is limited,
theory of electron behaviour in the several protons – helium has two, like someone on a
hydrogen atom in 1925. Three years uranium has 92 – whose combined ladder who can only
later, Paul Dirac completes the theory, positive charge ensnares negatively stand on one rung at a
making it consistent with the theory of
Special Relativity.
charged electrons to form the atom. time. Electrons in
It is the larger number of protons in atoms follow a
atoms of elements, such as uranium, fundamental
that helps give them a larger atomic regularity, each rung
weight than hydrogen. corresponding to a
state where the
Weighty issue electron has a unique
But protons alone don’t explain the amount of energy.
exact values of the atomic weights: in Danish physicist
addition to protons, all elements other Niels Bohr suggested
than hydrogen contain neutrons, the idea in 1912. When
1932 which have no electric charge.
Neutrons add to the mass of the atom
an electron drops from
a rung with high
Atomic nucleus established to consist of
protons and neutrons. The proton and but leave its chemical properties
neutron are today known to be made of unchanged. A given elemental atom
more fundamental seeds: quarks. The can occur with different numbers Mendeleev’s 1869 periodic
electron still appears to be indivisible. table had gaps that led him to
of neutrons. Such alternatives are believe that some elements
known as isotopes. Even hydrogen remained undiscovered

THE STRUCTURE OF THE ATOM
“An elemental atom can occur with

different numbers of neutrons. Such
alternatives are known as isotopes”
NEED TO KNOW
energy to one that is lower down, the Quantum theory goes further in
excess energy is carried away by a explaining where electrons can be
photon of light. Conversely, if an atom around a nucleus. Any particle can
Five key scientific
is hit by a photon whose energy take on a wave-like character. What is terms that will help
matches the gap between two rungs, familiar for electromagnetic waves you understand
the atom absorbs that photon, lifting occurs for electrons too. Imagine the atoms
the electron up the ladder. waves for electrons in atoms as if they
were wobbles on a length of rope. ALPHA PARTICLE
Light fantastic When coiled like a lasso, the number
A positively charged object
This absorption effect became obvious of wavelengths in the circuit has to
emitted in a form of
when sunlight was examined. Like all fit perfectly into its circumference. radioactivity. Originally thought
stars, the Sun emits electromagnetic Imagine this circle like a clock face. to be a simple particle, hence
radiation across the entire spectrum. If the wave peaks at 12 o’clock, with the name, today we know that
It also has a lot of gas in its outer a dip at 6 o’clock, the next peak will it consists of two protons and
atmosphere, containing a smorgasbord occur perfectly at 12: the wave ‘fits’ two neutrons tightly bound
of elements. In sunlight, the photons into the circle. However, a peak at 12 together. Some heavy nuclei are
with energies that happen to match followed by a dip at 5 o’clock would unstable and spontaneously
the gaps between rungs in the atomic have its next peak at 10 and be out of emit these clumps in what is
ladders are absorbed by the atoms of time with the beat of the wave: the known as alpha radioactivity.
these elements and never reach Earth. wave will not fit. So electrons
By viewing starlight through a circulating in atoms can only go on SCINTILLATOR

diffraction grating (a piece of glass paths where their waves fit perfectly When some materials are
scratched with close-packed grooves), on the lasso. A single wave struck by an incoming particle,
you split light into its component corresponds to the lowest rung of the the energy that is absorbed is
colours. These ‘missing’ photons energy ladder; two waves puts the then emitted as light. A screen
show up as dark lines. electron on the second rung and so on. coated with zinc sulphide emits
The energies of the faint flashes, visible in a
various waves are unique darkened room, when hit by
to atoms of a given element. alpha particles. Early in the
The spectral lines that 20th century, Ernest
Rutherford detected alpha
result when electrons jump
particles this way, revealing
from one rung to another the atomic nucleus.
are thus like a barcode,
identifying the elements
present in the Sun and ELEMENT
other stars. It also explains All substances are made from
the periodic regularity in combinations of chemical
chemical behaviour elements, which consist of
noticed by Mendeleev. So atoms. Examples of elements
although we can’t directly are hydrogen, carbon
‘see’ the electron waves and oxygen.
within atoms, this
hypothesis describes a PHOTON
host of historical In quantum theory, light waves
phenomena and has led to act as if composed of a series of
a wealth of technological individual particles, called
applications. We can photons. A photon is therefore
therefore claim to ‘know’ a particle of light with no mass.
a great deal about the
inner structure of the
atom, even though it is a RADIOACTIVITY
world beyond Lilliput. Atoms of one atomic element
may transform spontaneously
into another by emitting
particles, a process known
by F R A N K C L O S E
as transmutation.
Frank is Emeritus Professor of
physics at the University of Oxford.

THE STRUCTURE OF THE
PERIODIC TABLE
It’s a familiar sight in chemistry classrooms all over the world but, as
Andrew RobinsonTGXGCNUKVVQQMCEGPVWT[QHUEKGPVKƂEGPFGCXQWTVQYQTM
out the order and interconnectedness of the Periodic Table of Elements
T
he great physicist Ernest element empirically as a material now known to be chemical
Rutherford is famously reported substance that was yet to be compounds, and light and heat, which
to have said, “All science is decomposed into any more belong in physics, not chemistry.
either physics or stamp collecting,” fundamental substances. In 1789, The next step towards classifying
to the irritation of subsequent the year of the French Revolution, the elements was taken by an English
generations of scientists who were not Lavoisier published his Elementary chemist, John Dalton, around 1803.
physicists. Yet when Rutherford was Treatise on Chemistry, in which he Dalton assumed that each element
awarded a Nobel prize in 1908 for a listed 33 simple substances, or consisted of a particular type of
physics experiment, the prize was elements. Many of these are accepted atom – an indivisible entity. Using
given for chemistry. Rutherford took as elements today – the gases hydrogen Lavoisier’s data, Dalton estimated the
it with good humour, referring to his and oxygen, metals known since relative atomic weights (see ‘Need to
“instant transmutation from physicist antiquity, plus manganese, Know’, page 41) of several important
to chemist.” molybdenum and tungsten, and the elements by analysing simple
Rutherford played a key part in non-metals carbon, sulphur and chemical compounds. Water appeared
developing a periodic law governing phosphorus. But other supposed to be about one-eighth hydrogen and
the chemical elements in the 20th chemical elements in Lavoisier’s list seven-eighths oxygen by weight. This
century and our understanding of included lime and baryta, which are led Dalton to assign an atomic weight
elements today is down to both of one to hydrogen and seven to
chemistry and physics. The law was oxygen, by assuming water’s
discovered in February 1869, by molecular formula to be HO. Although
Dmitri Mendeleev and other chemists. Lavoisier’s measured proportions were
Although he’s regarded as a chemist, somewhat inaccurate and Dalton’s
Mendeleev spent almost no time molecular formula in this particular
searching for the elements in his lab. case was erroneous (as everyone now
knows), his approach was sound. The
Modern matter relative atomic weights of the elements
The modern concept of the chemical would prove crucial, after further
element began to emerge only in the refinement, to the construction of
late 18th century with the work of the periodic tables in the 1860s.
French chemist, Antoine-Laurent de A German chemist, Johann
Lavoisier. He is generally regarded as Wolfgang Döbereiner, began the
the founder of modern chemistry from process. From 1817, over several years
the 1770s until his death under the he noticed that triads of elements
guillotine in 1794. Using quantitative sharing similar chemical properties
GETTY
French chemist Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier was

experiments, Lavoisier defined an regarded as the father of modern chemistry also shared a pattern in their atomic 5

IN A
NUTSHELL
Two millennia after the ancient
Greeks wrongly classified the four
elements as fire, water, wind and
earth, Dmitri Mendeleev uncovered
underlying patterns in nature –
leading to one of the most
powerful tools
in science.
Dmitri Mendeleev
may have
arranged the
TIMELINE elements like a
game of solitaire
to create his
famous table
1817
In triads of chemically
similar elements, like
chlorine, bromine (left) 5 weights. For instance, the alkali
and iodine, Wolfgang metals lithium, sodium and potassium
Döbereiner declares the had the respective atomic weights 7, 23
second element’s atomic
weight to lie midway
and 39. Sodium’s atomic weight must
between that of the therefore lie midway between those of
first and third. lithium and potassium (7 + 39 = 46;
46 ÷ 2 = 23). The same relationship
held for the alkaline-earth metals
1858 calcium, strontium and barium, and
Atomic weights
for the halogens chlorine, bromine and Mendeleev’s proposal, which
are standardised
by Stanislao iodine. Between 1827 and 1858, other occurred to him while writing a
Cannizzaro, using chemists extended Döbereiner’s Russian chemistry textbook, was the
Amedeo Avogadro’s observations beyond these triads by last of these six. It was published in
1811 hypothesis. adding magnesium to the alkaline- draft form in 1869 and more fully in
earth metals and fluorine to the 1871, although it appears not to have
1869 halogens. Oxygen, sulphur, selenium been influenced by the five earlier
After partially successful attempts by and tellurium were classified as a proposals. All the proposals had
several chemists to detect periodicity family; nitrogen, phosphorus, arsenic, considerable merit, but only
in the atomic weights of the elements, antimony and bismuth as yet another. Mendeleev’s would become
Dmitri Mendeleev, while writing a established. The main reason it
chemistry textbook, introduces the basis
of a successful periodic table.
Multiple approaches succeeded was that between
In 1858, an Italian chemist called 1869 and 1871, Mendeleev had made a
Stanislao Cannizzaro published a number of predictions of the existence
standardised list of atomic and of unknown elements. He labelled
molecular weights. He did so by them with the Sanskrit word, ‘eka’,
reviving the 1811 hypothesis of his meaning ‘one’. They included eka-
compatriot, chemist/physicist aluminium, eka-boron and eka-
Amedeo Avogadro, concerning gases. silicon, which he predicted would
Avogadro, unlike Dalton, had guessed have the atomic weights 68, 44 and
that gases such as hydrogen and 72, respectively. The first of them was
1875 oxygen were composed of molecules, discovered in 1875 and named gallium
Gallium (above), the first of three hitherto which were themselves composed of (atomic weight 69.7), the second in
unknown chemical elements predicted
atoms. This meant that the molecular 1879 and named scandium (atomic
by Mendeleev from his periodic table,
is discovered by Paul-Émile Lecoq de weight of the gas must be different weight 45.0), the third in 1886 and
Boisbaudran. Scandium is discovered from the atomic weight of its named germanium (atomic weight
in 1879, and germanium in 1886. constituent element. The molecular 72.6). Moreover, Mendeleev predicted
weight depends on how many atoms almost all of the chemical properties
1911 of the element are contained in the
molecule: two atoms in the case of
of the new elements correctly.
Not all his predictions were so
After bombarding gold foil with alpha
particles, Ernest Rutherford and oxygen. Cannizzaro’s analysis formed successful. Well before his death in
collaborators establish the basis for discussion at the first 1907, new discoveries challenged his
the nuclear model of the international congress of chemists, theory. In fact, current versions of the
atom. Antonius van den
Broek theorises that held in Karlsruhe, Germany, in 1860. periodic table ignore three cardinal
SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY, SCIENCE & SOCIETY, ALAMY, GETTY
an element’s nuclear Among those attending were Dmitri principles dear to Mendeleev: the
charge determines its Mendeleev from Russia, Julius Lothar valency, the indivisibility and the
atomic number. Meyer from Germany and William immutability of the atom.
Odling from Britain. All three The valency is the number of
1913 chemists, along with two others, John
Newlands and Gustavus Hinrichs, and
chemical bonds an atom can form with
other atoms. The noble (inert) gases
By examining
elements’ X-ray a French geologist, Alexandre-Émile helium, neon, argon, krypton, radon
spectra, Henry Béguyer de Chancourtois, proposed and xenon – discovered in the 1890s
Moseley shows that different versions of the periodic table by the chemist William Ramsay and
nuclear charge and during the 1860s. They investigated the physicist Lord Rayleigh – appeared
atomic number are
connected; chemical
patterns in atomic weights, chemical totally unreactive, with a ‘forbidden’
properties are determined by this number; properties and, in the case of Hinrichs, valency of zero. Today, we know some
and only about 90 elements occur naturally. atomic spectra of the 63 elements do form a few chemical compounds.
known at this time. The discovery of the electron in 1897

THE PERIODIC TABLE
“Mendeleev made a number of predictions of the

existence of unknown elements. The first of them
was discovered in 1875 and named gallium”
NEED TO KNOW
by the physicist JJ Thomson disproved physicist, Antonius van den Broek,
indivisibility – the atom plainly had that the number of an element should
an inner structure. And radioactivity, correspond to its nuclear charge; in
Terms you’ll need
discovered by the physicist Henri other words, to its number of protons. to understand
Becquerel in 1896 and named by By measuring the wavelengths of The Periodic Table
the physicists/chemists Marie and characteristic X-ray spectral lines of
Pierre Curie in 1898, showed that many elements, Moseley showed that ATOMIC NUMBER
transmutation of elements does occur. the wavelengths depended in a regular The atomic number of an
Elements like uranium, polonium and way on the element’s atomic number. element is the number of
radium all undergo radioactive decay. It is atomic number, not atomic protons in its atomic nucleus.
weight, which is the ordering Oxygen’s atomic number is
By the numbers principle of the many versions of the eight, gold’s 79. Many elements
Most serious of all the objections, modern periodic table. The reason occur in more than one form,
though, was Mendeleev’s unyielding why atomic weight nevertheless known as isotopes, with equal
reliance on increasing atomic weight remains a good guide to an element’s numbers of protons but
different numbers of neutrons.
as the chief ordering principle of his properties is that increasing atomic
Carbon has two stable
periodic table. The higher the atomic weight generally parallels increasing isotopes, carbon-12 (the most
weight of an element, the later should atomic number, because atomic common) and carbon-13, and
be its position in the periodic table, he weight is determined by the protons one radioactive isotope,
maintained. Mendeleev himself was and the neutrons in the nucleus. As carbon-14.
aware of this difficulty, because he the number of protons rises through
allowed one or two exceptions to this the periodic table so (as a general rule)
rule – notably for tellurium, which he does the number of neutrons. Hence, ATOMIC WEIGHT
placed earlier than iodine despite an rising atomic number and increasing Also known as relative atomic
atomic weight of 127.6 for tellurium atomic weight roughly correspond. mass, the atomic weight of an
versus 126.9 for iodine. He justified That said, the physics of the atom element is the ratio of the
average mass of one atom of
this reversal on the grounds that the will never completely predict its
the element to one-twelfth the
atomic weights for one or both of these chemical behaviour as an element. mass of an atom of carbon,
elements had been incorrectly In the words of The Periodic Table, a which has an atomic weight of
determined. But his reasoning turned celebrated collection of short stories approximately 12. Oxygen’s
out to be wrong. While tellurium does by Primo Levi, the Italian-Jewish atomic weight is 16, gold’s 197.
indeed have a higher atomic weight chemist who evaded being gassed at
than iodine, its atomic number, 52, is Auschwitz in 1944, “one must distrust
now known to be smaller than the the almost-the-same.” ELEMENT
atomic number of iodine, 53. Even potassium and sodium, nearest A chemical element, such as
Atomic number was a concept neighbours as alkali metals in the oxygen or gold, is a substance
unknown to Mendeleev. In some periodic table, can behave very that cannot be resolved into
simpler substances by chemical
19th-century periodic tables, elements differently under the same
means. The atoms of a given
were simply numbered according circumstances: one causing an element all have the same
to increasing atomic weight. The explosion, the other not. Alluding atomic number. The atomic
concept owes its existence to to his own narrow escape from death number of each element
physicists, notably the work of in the Holocaust, Levi added: “The is different.
Rutherford and Henry Moseley differences can be small, but they
between 1911 and 1914. can lead to radically different
Rutherford discovered the consequences, like a railroad’s COMPOUND
atomic nucleus, with its switch points.” It’s an appropriate A chemical compound is a
positively charged protons, conclusion to the convoluted substance that is composed
around which negatively charged history of the most profound of two or more different
chemically bonded chemical
electrons orbit, an idea that discovery in chemistry.
elements. For example, water
Niels Bohr later refined. (H2O) is a compound consisting
Moseley followed a of two hydrogen atoms bonded
suggestion by an by A N D R E W to an oxygen atom.
economist and amateur RO B I N S O N
SCIENCE & SOCIETY
Andrew is a science
writer and the
Ernest Rutherford (1871-
1937) revealed the structure author of Einstein
of the atomic nucleus on the Run.

RY
C TO
DU ER
RO FF
T O
IN
Ideas, discoveries and the big questions answered...
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UNDERSTANDING
QUANTUM PHYSICS 'XGP0QDGN2TK\GYKPPKPIRJ[UKEKUVUCTGDCHƃGFD[VJKU

tricky subject. But Dr John Gribbin is here to reveal why
quantum physics is relevant to all our lives
Q What is quantum physics for?

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GETTY
When Max Planck suggested that light was made up of

Clerk Maxwell. particles, he completely overturned classical physics FGVGTOKPGFD[VJGYC[VJKPIUCTG5

5 now, which doesn’t leave very much

room for free will. This is sometimes
THE KEY EXPERIMENT called ‘Newton’s Clockwork Universe’.

But according to quantum physics,
an electron is never located at a precise
Proof that light can be a wave or a particle place (because of its wave nature), and
In the 18th century, debate raged should ‘pile up’ in two bands it is never sure where it is going. This
as to whether light was a wave (B). Photons don’t, though: even is the ‘uncertainty principle’
or a particle. But in 1803, English if you send photons through discovered by Werner Heisenberg,
scientist Thomas Young showed the double slit individually, an who found that there is a trade-off.
that, when light is passed through interference pattern is observed Quantum objects can either have a
two slits onto a backboard, an (C). Just to complicate matters, relatively well-defined position and
interference pattern appears. This if you monitor which slit each a poorly defined direction, or a well-
is similar to what’s seen when photon is going through, the defined direction and a poorly defined
two sets of similarly generated interference patterns are replaced position. But they can’t have both. It’s
waves collide in water (A). Light, by two bands. the price of free will.
he deduced, must be a wave. In The same applies to other This ties in with another concept
the early 20th century, however, fundamental particles, such that’s key to quantum physics:
Einstein and others demonstrated as electrons. If that sounds a probability. You can never say
that light can also be seen as a bit mind-blowing, welcome to precisely where a quantum entity
stream of particles – photons. the world of quantum physics,
is or where it is going, but you can use
This is where things get tricky. where ‘wave-particle duality’ is
quantum physics rules to work out
When individual particles are sent commonplace and where the mere
probabilities, such as the probability
one at a time through a double act of observing can affect the
slit, as in Young’s experiment, they outcome of an experiment.
that an electron will follow a certain
trajectory, or the probability that a
sample of radioactive material will
Light acting decay and spit out a particle within
as a wave a certain time.
Q What is a quantum?
A
PATTERNS A quantum is the smallest
SEEN ON
SCREEN amount of something that it is
possible to have. The smallest amount
WAVE of light you can have, for example, is a
particle called a photon. If you have a
bright light, there are many photons
SCREEN WITH DETECTOR
A streaming outwards. But as you turn
TWO SLITS SCREEN the light down, there are fewer and
fewer photons. Eventually, there are
so few photons that they can be
Light acting detected one at a time.
DETECTOR SCREEN EXPECTED OBSERVED
as a particle PATTERNS PATTERNS Astronomers see this happening
when they build up images of very
faint objects using long exposures of
charge-coupled devices (CCDs). When
atoms emit light, they do so by
PHOTON rearranging their electrons to radiate
energy. Like a ball bouncing down a
staircase, the electron jumps from one
energy level to another inside the atom
and a photon is emitted. This jump is
known as a quantum leap.
A quantum leap is the smallest
SCREEN WITH TWO SLITS B C change it is possible to make –
something to remember next time you
see the term used in advertising.

UNDERSTANDING QUANTUM PHYSICS
In one tweet…
Quantum physics gives us free will. Without it you
would have no choice about anything. It explains
what life is and how your phone works.
The first ever image of light

behaving as a wave and
a particle was released
in March 2015
D-WAVE
Could this be the first quantum
computer? Manufacturers D-Wave
claim that it is, but have not revealed
details of how it works. What
we do know is that it’s cooled to
temperatures approaching absolute
zero. The aim is to develop computers
based on the superposition idea of
quantum physics. These quantum
computers will make classical
computers look as primitive
as an abacus.
Q Can we see quantum effects? But as hundreds of electrons were

fired through the experiment, one
A The definitive demonstration

of quantum effects at work was
carried out by a Japanese team in the
after another, the pattern of spots that
built up was an interference pattern,
proving that electrons are waves.
1980s. They took the classical Don’t worry if you find your mind
experiment that ‘proves’ light is a boggled by this. The physicist Richard
wave and adapted it to electrons. Feynman used to say that “nobody
The traditional experiment involves understands quantum physics”, and
sending a beam of light through two he had won a Nobel Prize for it.
slits in a cardboard screen to make a
pattern on another screen on the far
side. Like ripples on a pond, the waves Q Are there practical applications?
started to spread out from the two slits
and interfered with one another to A Applied quantum physics is
everywhere around us.
D-WAVE SYSTEMS, NASA/AMES
make the distinctive pattern. In their Computer chips, including the ones in
variation on the theme, the Japanese your smartphone, are designed using
team fired electrons, one at a time, quantum physics and operate on
through an equivalent setup onto a quantum principles. The lasers used to
screen like a television screen, where read Blu-ray discs operate on quantum
each electron made a single spot as it principles that were first worked out
arrived, showing that it was a particle. by Albert Einstein 100 years ago. 5

NEED TO KNOW
5 Physicists have developed tools the particles that went into it, so
known as superconducting quantum energy is released in line with
Understand quantum interference devices, or SQUIDs, in Einstein’s famous equation, E=mc2.
physics with these which electron waves travel around Astronomers are able to figure out how
terms a ring of metal about the size of a hot the interior of the Sun must be in
wedding ring. SQUIDs are order to hold itself up against gravity.
DIFFRACTION supersensitive detectors of magnetic But this then led to a puzzle.
This is the process by which fields and are used in many different Because protons are positively
waves can bend around corners applications, including the MRI charged, they repel each other and
or spread out in all directions scanners that allow doctors to have to be moving very fast before
from a small hole or slit. ‘see’ inside the human body. they will collide and stick together.
The most exciting application of Classical physics said that the interior
quantum physics is in the new field of the Sun is not hot enough for this to
DUALITY of quantum computing. Ordinary happen. Quantum physics provided
This is the way that quantum computers are based on switches that the explanation. When two protons are
entities seem to be both can be either on or off (0 or 1); in close together, but not close enough to
particle and wave. Light ‘waves’
contrast, a quantum computer has touch according to classical theory,
are associated with particles
called photons; electron
switches that can be both on and off quantum uncertainty means that there
‘particles’ are associated at the same time. This is a so-called is a probability that they might touch.
with waves. superposition, which makes the Another way of understanding this is
computer immensely more powerful. to think of the protons as waves,
reaching out to each other. The result
Q
ENERGY LEVEL How does quantum physics is that the protons can fuse by
A quantum state, for example in explain the Sun’s energy? tunnelling through the barrier of
SCIENCE & SOCIETY, GETTY X2

an atom, that is associated with Stars like the Sun release energy classical electrical repulsion.
a particular energy. Electrons in as a result of a process called
Q What is antimatter?
atoms will sit on, or occupy, nuclear fusion. At its simplest, inside
specific energy levels.
the Sun two protons (hydrogen nuclei)
QUANTUM LEAP
come together and fuse, then combine
with other particles to make nuclei of
helium. The helium has less mass than
A One of the strangest predictions
of quantum physics is that for
every type of particle, there should
The change of a quantum
system, such as an electron in
an atom, from one energy level
to another. This happens
without the system (electron)
passing through any
in-between state. TIMELINE
SUPERPOSITION 1905
German physicist Albert
This is when a quantum system
Einstein explains the
exists in a mixture of states. For photoelectric effect, in
example, an electron has a which light falling on
property called spin. On its a metal surface makes
own, the electron is in a photoelectrons jump out
superposition of spin up and of the surface.
spin down. It only ‘collapses’
into one state when it interacts
with something. This is linked
to the idea of quantum 1900
probability – there is a 50:50
chance of finding the electron
German physicist
Max Planck discovers that
1913
black body radiation can Danish physicist Niels Bohr
in either state.
be explained if light is explains the spectrum of light
emitted in packets of radiated by atoms in terms of
energy, now called electrons jumping between
photons. This conflicts fixed energy levels, like steps
with the accepted idea on a staircase, inside the atom.
that light is a wave. This is the ‘quantum leap’.

UNDERSTANDING QUANTUM PHYSICS
Clockwise from top left: model of a

matter-antimatter annihilation event;
production of a matter particle, along with
its corresponding antimatter; a researcher
adjusts a NanoSQUID device that changes
temperature when it’s hit by a photon
be an antiparticle that has its key

properties reversed. The electron, for
example, has a negative charge, while
its antiparticle, the positron, has a
positive charge.
The physicist Paul Dirac was the
first person to take this seriously, but
when he published the idea in the
1920s he cautiously suggested that the
required positive particle might be the
proton, the only other particle known
at the time. But in 1932 the physicist
Carl Anderson discovered the tracks
of positively charged particles with
the same mass as electrons in a
device known as a cloud chamber.
This breakthrough earned him a
Nobel Prize.
Dirac had been more correct than he
had realised. It turns out that particle-
antiparticle pairs (such as an electron
CERN, SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY X4, GETTY
and a positron) can be made out of

pure energy in line with Einstein’s
equation, but when a particle and its
antiparticle meet they annihilate each
other in a puff of gamma rays.
by D R J O H N G R I B B I N
Dr Gribbin is a science writer and Visiting Fellow
in astronomy at the University of Sussex.
“For every type of

1932 1985 particle, there is an
While studying cosmic ray David Deutsch publishes
tracks, US physicist Carl a paper pointing out the antiparticle that has
Anderson, sees the trace possibility of making a
of a particle like an electron
but with a positive charge.
true quantum computer.
He predicts that they will
its key properties
It is the positron,
an antiparticle.
carry out certain tasks much
faster than a conventional
reversed”
computer can.
1927
US physicist Clinton
Davisson and UK physicist
George Paget Thomson
(above) share a Nobel
Prize for independently
discovering that electrons
can be diffracted like waves,
confirming the reality of
wave-particle duality.

Each eye of a damselfly is

made up of thousands of tiny
‘facets’, which can detect
movement up to 15m away
PHOTO: MIROSLAV SWIETEK /SOLENT NEWS
THE FUNDAMENTALS OF
LIFE
The Origin of LIFE 50
The Structure of DNA 56
The Composition of HUMAN CELLS 62
The Theory of EVOLUTION 68
The History of BRAIN RESEARCH 75
T H E F U N D A M E N TA L S O F L I F E
THE
ORIGIN OF LIFE There are millions of species alive on Earth today.

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VTCXGNUDCEMVJTQWIJHQWTDKNNKQP[GCTUQHJKUVQT[VQƂPFQWV
Q How long ago did life get started

on Earth?
living cells today – the ability to self-
replicate, for example, or to produce
themselves, while the others were
outcompeted for raw materials.
A Around four billion years ago,

when the Earth was still
partially molten and under heavy
other useful biological molecules.
Once such biological characteristics
emerged, a sort of ‘chemical evolution’
Over billions of generations, more
complex variations emerged, with
the basic molecular processes of life
bombardment from meteors, the very was set in motion: chemicals made enclosed within a membrane. These
first life-like systems appeared. copies of themselves, some emerging cell-like structures were essentially
Somehow, chemicals developed life- with variations that made them either the first microbial cells, from which
like properties – using matter and more or less efficient, or helped them all life evolved.
energy from the hellish environment cooperate with others. The variants More fanciful theories suggest that
to make more of themselves. Origin-of- that worked best made more copies of life on Earth was ‘seeded’ by ancient
life researchers are still trying to work microbes falling from space.
out exactly how, during this period,
chemistry suddenly became biology.
Once basic biological systems Q What is the earliest evidence
of life on Earth?
formed, life never looked back,
evolving into the two enormously
diverse groups of microbes now
A The oldest cells ever found
are fossilised in rocks dated
to around 3-3.4 billion years ago.
known as bacteria and archaea. A These early cells look a bit like
merger between two of these ancient cyanobacteria, which is still abundant
cell types, billions of years later, is today. They were likely to have been
thought to have given rise to more thermophiles, meaning they liked hot
GETTY, D KELLEY/M ELEND/UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
complex, multicellular organisms – places, and autotrophs, meaning they

including us, and all the plants, fungi made their own complex organic
and animals that ever lived. compounds from simple chemicals.
Further back in time, there must have
Q How exactly did life on

Earth begin?
been an older type of organism from
which these cells evolved.
A Unfortunately, there is no
consensus or standard model
to explain how life started on Earth.
Other evidence of ancient life can be
seen in the form of stromatolites –
rocky structures formed from the
However, most theories are based on gritty deposits of vast sheets of ancient
the idea that at some point early in the microbes floating in the sea. Some of
planet’s history, chemicals developed Stromatolites, like these in Australia, formed from these, found in Western Australia, are
characteristics that are found in all ancient microbes up to 3.5 billion years ago thought to be up to 3.5 billion years 5

Our most ancient ancestor could be a porous

rock. Some scientists believe conditions
in deep-sea alkaline vents would have
encouraged metabolic-style reactions
THE FUNDAMENTALS OF LIFE
“Life is often said to have started spontaneously

in a ‘primordial soup’ – a sort of chemical stock
formed in the pools and puddles of early Earth”
5 old, but little is known about the on Earth, suggesting life may have
organisms that made them. appeared surprisingly soon after the
The oldest evidence of life on Earth planet formed.
is mysterious traces of a certain But what left these tantalising traces
isotope of carbon, which researchers of life? Here the trail goes cold. The
think must have been produced by a theory of how life began, from the
living organism. Some of this graphite, innate chemistry of early Earth to
also found in Western Australia, those early cells, is a puzzle that
is thought to have formed around remains unsolved.
4.1 billion years ago. This is almost
as old as the oldest rocks ever found
Q Why are there still so many
unanswered questions?
A As well as there being no clear

evidence to examine, at the heart
of the problem is a paradox. To make
THE KEY EXPERIMENT the complex biological molecules
required for life normally requires
Scientist Stanley Miller combined seawater and various other biological molecules. How could
any of these intricate molecules be
gases together to replicate the ocean and the atmosphere made when biological systems did not
exist to make them?
WATER VAPOUR, DNA, for example, cannot form by
METHANE, some sort of chemical accident – to
HYDROGEN AND make it requires specific enzymes. But
VAPOUR CIRCULATION
DIRECTION OF WATER
Miller introduced AMMONIA to make those enzymes requires the

electricity to precise instructions carried by DNA.
simulate a lightning There are other fundamental
storm. The process problems too – even if complex organic
generated amino molecules like enzymes and DNA did
acids – the building arise spontaneously, how and why did
blocks for life. they begin to cooperate as a system?
TO VACUUM And how did early life manage to
PUMP
create large organic molecules without
the complex energy systems that drive
the process in modern cells?
ELECTRICAL
Q
ELECTRODES
SPARK What exactly is a ‘primordial
soup’?
A Life is often said to have started

spontaneously in a ‘primordial
soup’ – a sort of chemical stock formed
in the pools and puddles of early
Earth. Charles Darwin once wrote
CONDENSER COLD
SAMPLING a letter to a friend in which he
WATER
PROBE speculated whether life could have
originated in “some warm little pond
somewhere” and scientists such as JBS
Haldane and Alexander Oparin (who
coined the phrase ‘primordial soup’)
SAMPLING PROBE developed the theory in the 1920s.
Both said that various chemical
SEAWATER compounds could accumulate and
become concentrated in locations
COOLED WATER
(CONTAINING ORGANIC
where hydration and drying regularly
HEAT occur, such as shorelines, rocky pools
COMPOUNDS)
TRAP or oceanic vents. Cycles of hydration
and drying, plus energy from magma,

THE ORIGIN OF LIFE
Computer
visualisation of
biomolecules
in the Universe
ultraviolet light or lightning, could essential amino acids required for catalyse reactions, just like iron- and
be conducive to the production of life can be made like this. Scientists sulphur-based proteins do in modern
complex organic molecules, they have also since made other important cells. Today, such vents often host
said. Finally, at some point, fat-like biological chemicals in similar ways, complex microbial communities,
molecules could have formed an such as nucleotides, the building fuelled by the chemicals dissolved in
‘oily film’ on the soup that enclosed blocks of DNA. the vent fluids.
important molecules within bubbles, So did life form in the primordial The most exciting aspect of this
forming the first cell-like units. soup? Well, this approach only gets theory, however, is the complex
For decades, however, there was us so far. Even with a ‘soup’ stocked chemistry occurring between the
very little evidence to support this with the ingredients of life, such as inside and the outside of the
idea. It appeared that the essential amino acids and nucleotides, it’s still microscopic pores. This could create
molecules of life – proteins, fat-based enormously difficult to get these what is known as a ‘proton gradient’ –
cell membranes, and DNA – were only ingredients to form very complex an absolutely key part of the way all
found in living organisms and could biochemicals, such as proteins or organisms store energy and use it to
not form without the molecular DNA. And it’s even more difficult build complex molecules.
machinery contained inside cells. to make versions of those molecules The final stage in the theory again
In 1952, a young scientist named with meaningful biological functions. involves the production of fatty
Stanley Miller put water, methane, molecules, which can spontaneously
hydrogen and ammonia together, and
frazzled it with thousands of volts to Q Could life have begun
anywhere else?
form bubble-like, cell-like spheres.
Having been produced in the chemical
emulate the fierce electrical storms
that would have been a feature of
Earth’s turbulent atmosphere at the
A Another theory gaining
credibility is the idea that life
began in deep-sea hydrothermal vents.
froth, some of these bubbles could
have enclosed self-replicating sets of
molecules – forming the very first
time life first appeared (see ‘The At the time of life’s origin, the seawater organic protocells.
Key Experiment’, left). was acidic and positively charged. In
Within a few days, the mixture
had turned into a rich, brown mix
contrast, the vents ejected negatively
charged, alkaline substances. Q Could life have arrived on
Earth from space?
of chemicals and analysis found that
amino acids – the building blocks of
These fissures in the Earth’s crust,
where alkaline minerals reacted with A The idea that life originated in
space, known as panspermia, is
proteins – had formed spontaneously. acidic seawater, created tiny pores in not as wacky as it sounds. Scientists
The experiment was key in rocks, which appear to concentrate have found lots of unexpectedly
supporting the view that life could chemicals produced by other reactions complex molecules, such as amino
arise from simple chemicals on the in the vent. acids or small components of DNA,
surface of the Earth. Modern analysis Iron- and sulphur-based minerals nestled on comets or meteorites that
has since found that all 22 of the in the vents could have helped have crashed to Earth. 5

In one tweet…
Life may have started 4.1bn years ago, not long
after the Earth formed. But how did it begin?
It’s one of science’s greatest questions.
5 Most scientists say that these
chemicals, at best, simply ‘stocked the
help them perform various functions,
like being a catalyst for the production Q Are there any other theories
that are considered possible?
soup’. There is no evidence that cells
or more complex biological molecules,
such as protein or DNA, have travelled
of other molecules. And scientists
have created an RNA molecule (R3C)
that helps to create more of itself. This
A There are dozens more theories.
Many are based on conditions
that might have helped concentrate
to Earth from space. ‘protogene’ lends support to the idea important biochemicals and protect
SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY X2, GETTY, MATTHEW J PARKER/WIKIPEDIA, UNIVERSTY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON

that chemicals can develop life-like them from degradation, such as the
Q Somolecule?
what was the first biological properties such as self-replication.
Other theories suggest that life
‘clay theory’, which suggests crystals
in clay helped arrange organic
A The holy grail of origin-of-life

research is understanding
which chemicals developed life-like
began with a much simpler version
of DNA and RNA – one that was easier
to form from the chemicals of early
molecules into organised patterns.
Others attempt to deduce the order
in which the molecules of life formed
properties first and how they began Earth. This then evolved into the and began to cooperate. One example
to work together. amazingly robust and efficient is the ‘lipid world’ theory, which
The fact that DNA carries the information-carrying molecules that suggests that membrane-like bubbles
instructions for life suggests it was we see today. of fatty molecules were the first step
central to early life. But researchers Prof Nicholas Hud, from the NASA- towards cellular life. Although these
are increasingly focused on another funded Centre for Chemical Evolution, wouldn’t be information carrying
molecule, RNA, as potentially the first believes there may have been several units, like RNA or DNA, they may
chemical to come to life. RNA is biological molecules coexisting at one have been able to produce more of
similar in structure to DNA and point and ‘life’ as we know it started themselves and RNA might then have
performs lots of key functions in cells, when they began to cooperate. “I don’t formed more easily within them.
from making proteins to translating believe that there was one first self-
and communicating the genetic code.
‘RNA world’ is the name given to the
replicating molecule. I think we are
descendants of the polymers that Q Will we ever find a satisfactory
answer?
theory that before DNA, self-
replicating RNA units began to
proliferate and evolved complexity.
started to work together. Four types of
polymer essentially form most of the
metabolism of life: lipid membranes,
A Scientists working on this
problem still disagree on the
fundamentals. Speaking to origin-of-
Researchers making random polysaccharides [sugars], proteins and life researchers at times sounds like
sequences of RNA have found that nucleic acids. These are the survivors they are moving further away from a
some can form complex shapes, which of perhaps many different polymers.” consensus, rather than closer.
TIMELINE 580 million

YEARS AGO
3-3.5 billion Multicellular life on Earth
YEARS AGO starts flourishing. The
relatively short period
The oldest evidence of during which many animals
actual microbial cells dates first appeared is known as
back to around three billion the ‘Cambrian explosion’.
years ago. These were
similar to cyanobacteria
2-2.5 billion Pictured are some creatures
that lived in this period.
(below). The last known YEARS AGO
common ancestor of all life Evidence of oxygen in the
on Earth lived in this period, atmosphere suggests an
just before cells split into abundance of oxygen-
two main types: producing, photosynthetic
bacteria and
3.8-4.5 billion archaea.
organisms. The first
eukaryotic cells
YEARS AGO appear, thought to
First living organisms be the result of
appear. Specks of graphite, one cell enslaving
another as an
2-3 million
thought to be produced by
early life, have been dated energy source. YEARS AGO
to 4.1 billion years ago – as The first humans or human-
old as the oldest rocks. like beings appear on Earth.

THE ORIGIN OF LIFE
Researchers are
increasingly investigating
RNA as a key candidate
for helping life to evolve
NEED TO KNOW
Key terms to help

you understand the
origin of life
ABIOGENESIS
The technical term for life
originating from non-living
matter, such as simple organic
chemicals. The opposite,
biogenesis, means living matter
arising from other living matter,
which is how life on Earth
proliferated once it started.
RNA WORLD
Dr Nick Lane, a biochemist and solution is achievable. Increasingly, RNA is like a single-stranded
author of the origin-of-life book The scientists are using computer version of DNA and performs
Vital Question, says the problem is modelling to investigate how certain many important functions in all
even harder to solve than those posed mixtures of molecules might behave living cells. Scientists have
by theoretical physics. “We are not over time – an advance that could help shown that RNA can
even in the position of the physicists, speed up progress in this area. “I don’t spontaneously form a
self-replicating molecule,
ISTOCK, SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
where everyone at least agreed what think I’m that far away…” says Dr
the question was and could build a Lane, semi-seriously. suggesting Earth was once
huge machine like CERN to look for “The key message is that the nuts populated by simple
self-replicating RNA forms.
the answer. We are still miles away and bolts of all life is almost identical,”
from that agreement.” says Dr Matthew Powner, a chemist
However, despite the lack of a studying the origin of life at University PROTON GRADIENT
unifying theory, many scientists College London. “The difference Cells can only function properly
remain confident that a satisfactory between us and a tree seems obvious, with energy created by complex
but people often don’t understand how metabolic reactions, which
similar the biochemistry that it’s all generate a difference in
built from is, using very few chemical chemical charges in different
species. Eight nucleotides, 20 amino parts of the cell. This is known
acids and a few lipids, and you don’t as a proton gradient. Working
Present day need much else.” out how it could occur
There are estimated to be at least 10 million species spontaneously is a key part
The overall solution may not have
of organism living on Earth today, but the vast of establishing how early
majority are still unknown to scientists. The human been solved yet, but each and every life functioned.
population is over seven billion, and mankind is life-like molecule that emerges from
now exploring space for signs of other life. a laboratory is another piece of the
puzzle found. As broadcaster and LUCA
geneticist Dr Adam Rutherford The Last Universal Common
concludes in his book Creation: Ancestor is the ancient
The Origin of Life, “That first time had organism from which all life on
millions of years, whereas scientists Earth is thought to have
have made these replicators in a evolved. It is a largely
decade… In all origin-of-life studies theoretical organism, thought
to have lived around 3.5 billion
it is important to remember that we
years ago, just before cells split
know the answer: life is the answer. into bacteria and archaea.
The question is finding a believable
route to get there.”
PANSPERMIA
The idea that life evolved after
by T O M I R E L A N D (@Tom_J_Ireland) travelling to Earth from space.
Tom is a journalist and managing editor
at the Royal Society of Biology.

THE STRUCTURE OF
DNA
Before the gene-carrying molecule DNA was discovered, we had no idea
of the mechanics of life. Katherine Nightingale reveals how describing
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T
he year is 1869 and a young Chromosomes, the coils of DNA and made of: DNA or protein? And what
researcher is toiling away in a protein that contain genes, had first did they look like?
laboratory in an old castle in been spotted in cells in the early A German doctor named Albrecht
Germany, on course to make a 1840s. Later that century, researchers Kossel took some of the first steps
remarkable discovery. The lab studies saw them double in number and then towards finding out. Working under
the composition of cells and Friedrich halve again into separate ‘daughter’ Hoppe-Seyler in the late 1800s, he
Miescher is analysing white blood cells during cell division. In 1865, the discovered DNA’s ‘bases’ and named
cells, which he extracts from the pus Austrian monk Gregor Mendel used them thymine (T), adenine (A),
in a local clinic’s discarded bandages. pea plants to explore theories on cytosine (C) and guanine (G). This
Having exhausted his efforts in genetic inheritance, proposing that work was continued by Phoebus
classifying the cell’s proteins, characteristics are inherited in Levene, a Lithuanian researcher
Miescher turns his attention to discrete units. When his research driven to New York in the early 1890s
another substance in his samples. was rediscovered in the early 1900s, because of anti-Semitism in his
He finds it odd – an acid that contains a flurry of work determined that adopted home of St Petersburg.
phosphorus – and declares he has these units, or genes, must be in
discovered a completely new type of chromosomes. But what were they The units of DNA
substance. Nuclein, or DNA as we now For three decades from the mid-1890s,
call it, has been found. Levene studied the structure of DNA,
Like any good sceptical scientist, identifying its other components: a
Miescher’s boss Felix Hoppe-Seyler sugar called deoxyribose and
is wary and waits to repeat the phosphate groups. He also discovered
experiments before, two years later, that DNA is made up of units he called
allowing publication. But this delay nucleotides. Each of these is made up
would turn out to be negligible; it was of a sugar, phosphate group and base,
many more decades before scientists and are linked by bonds between the
saw the importance of DNA. Misecher phosphate groups of one nucleotide
went on to find DNA in a variety of and the sugar of the next.
cells, but even he couldn’t believe that But this was as far as Levene’s
just one substance generated the correct findings went. He thought that
enormous diversity of life. As late as each DNA molecule contained only
the 1940s, most scientists thought that four nucleotides, one with each type
proteins – large biological molecules of base, linked together in a ring he
that come in all shapes and sizes – called a ‘tetranucleotide’.
were the only substances complex Gregor Mendel cross-bred different coloured peas Levene’s tetranucleotides were too
enough to be the agents of heredity. in some of the earliest experiments into heredity simple to carry a genetic code and 5

The double helix of DNA:

nature’s elegant solution
to the blueprint of life
IN A
NUTSHELL
The key to all life on Earth: a
simple molecule known as DNA
found in every cell of your body.
It took several breakthroughs to
fully understand the extent of
its role in biology, a discovery
that triggered a scientific
revolution.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
It took the efforts of these science greats to
finally realise the structure of DNA
WILLIAM ASTBURY 5 so reinforced the idea that proteins
(1898-1961) was a must be the hereditary agent.
British molecular Revealing DNA’s hidden complexity
biologist and physicist was going to require a closer look.
who spent much While Levene was unravelling the
of his working life complexities of DNA in New York,
in Leeds. His work across the Atlantic a father-and-son
focused originally team was establishing a technique
on the structure of that would prove crucial to
proteins in textiles but,
determining DNA’s structure.
along with his PhD
William Henry Bragg, a physicist at
student Florence Bell,
FRANCIS CRICK the University of Leeds, and his son
he took the first X-ray
(1916-2004) was born William Lawrence Bragg, a researcher
photographs of DNA
in 1937. near Northampton to at the Cavendish Laboratory in
the owner of a shoe Cambridge, laid the foundations for
factory and became a the field of X-ray crystallography
British biophysicist and between 1912 and 1914. They were
molecular biologist. inspired by the work of Max von
After co-discovering Laue, who discovered in 1912 that
the structure of DNA, X-rays bend when they pass through
he went on to crystals, substances with highly
determine how DNA ordered structures.
codes for proteins,
MAURICE WILKINS The younger Bragg reasoned that,
(1916-2004) was a before venturing
because they have ordered patterns of
British physicist and into neuroscience.
atoms, the way that the X-rays bend
molecular biologist through crystals would reveal
who was born in New something about their structure. His
Zealand. As well as more practically minded father built
his DNA research, the first X-ray spectrometer – a device
he worked in fields for shooting a narrow beam of X-rays at
such as radar and
substances – and together they tested
microscopy. He
the theory on salt crystals.
remained at King’s
College until his
retirement in 1981.
ROSALIND FRANKLIN Bragg’s Law
(1920-1958) was born In these experiments, the Braggs
in London to a rich placed a photographic plate behind
Jewish family. The the crystal, onto which the scattered
X-ray crystallographer X-rays would produce a characteristic
OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY, ALAMY X2, GETTY, COLD SPRING HARBOR LABORATORY
and biophysicist pattern. William Lawrence Bragg
provided much of the came up with an equation, known
experimental evidence as Bragg’s Law, that allowed them to
for the structure of work backwards from the patterns to
JAMES WATSON DNA before switching
deduce the crystal’s structure. The
(1928-) is an her focus to viruses.
pair won a Nobel Prize in 1915.
American geneticist She died of cancer
One of the first groups to apply this
and molecular at the age of 37.
technique to biological molecules was
biologist born in
headed by William Astbury, who
Chicago, who gained
began working at the University of
his PhD at just 22. After
Leeds in 1928, having studied under
co-discovering DNA’s
William Henry Bragg at the Royal
structure in Cambridge
in 1953, he worked at Institution. In 1937, Astbury was sent
Harvard University and samples of calf DNA by Swedish
then the Cold Spring researcher Torbjörn Caspersson. A few
Harbor Laboratory years previously, Caspersson had
until he retired in 2007. shown that DNA is a polymer – a long
chain of nucleotides – rather than the
short lengths Levene had suggested.

THE STRUCTURE OF DNA
“They created conditions in which only DNA

(not protein) could be transferred, hence
determining that only DNA could pass on traits”
Astbury’s PhD student, Florence the pictures weren’t detailed enough conditions in which only DNA – not
Bell, took the first of hundreds of X-ray for him to get further. protein – could be transferred. In this
diffraction pictures of DNA that year. way, they determined that only DNA
The fact that it produced a pattern at Clues in bacteria could pass on traits. Though many
all suggested that DNA had a ‘solvable’ Meanwhile, back in the US, a medical would refuse to believe it, DNA had
structure. Astbury and Bell’s pictures researcher named Oswald Avery was been strongly implicated as the carrier
look like smears compared to the busy refining a 1928 experiment by a of inheritance and science had the
clear images that Rosalind Franklin British microbiologist called Fred tools to find out what it looked like.
was able to produce in the early 1950s, Griffith. He had shown that it was The stage was set for the race to find
but their pictures did reveal one possible to make harmless bacteria the structure of DNA in the 1950s –
crucial fact: the distance between the and their progeny dangerous by only not everyone knew it was a race.
bases in the DNA molecule. mixing them with virulent bacteria, DNA research was to benefit from
In 1938, Astbury used the images he suggesting that something was being the post-World War Two mood in
and Bell produced to propose a transferred from the virulent to science, as many physicists who had
structure for DNA in which the bases harmless bacteria. Avery and his been employed in war work turned
are stacked on top of each other, but colleagues deliberately created their attention to the more benign 5
THE KEY EXPERIMENT

It was a photo taken by biophysicist and crystallographer Rosalind Franklin that
held the key to determining the make-up and structure of the DNA molecule
Rosalind Franklin’s key experiment – the results

of which James Watson glimpsed – was a series
of X-ray crystallography experiments with DNA
samples containing different amounts of water.
The most famous outcome of this is 1952’s
‘Photo 51’, which revealed key details about
the structure of DNA.
The more a feature is repeated within
a structure, the more the film will be
bombarded with X-rays diffracted in
the same way, and the darker the
corresponding patch in the image. The
large dark patches at the top and bottom
of the picture represent DNA’s bases,
while the X-shaped blobs indicate a
helix. The arms of the cross represent
the planes of symmetry in a helix viewed
from the side; the ‘zig’ and the ‘zag’ of its
turns. There are 10 spots on each arm of
the cross before you reach the large black
patch at the top, which corresponds with
10 bases stacked one on top of the other in
each turn of the helix. The fourth blob from
the centre is missing, which indicates that one
strand of DNA is slightly offset against the other.
Rosalind Franklin turned her attention to
KINGS COLLEGE LONDON
Photo 51 in early 1953. Her notebooks suggest that

she had gleaned all its key information and may,
‘Photo 51’, taken via X-ray
in time, have reached the same conclusions as crystallography by Rosalind
Watson and Crick. Franklin, that reveals DNA’s
double-helix structure

TIMELINE
1869
Friedrich Miescher
discovers DNA in
his preparations of 5 biological problems. Among them made up of three DNA chains with the
white blood cells was Maurice Wilkins, who had sugar-phosphate backbone on the
extracted from worked on both radar and the inside and the bases on the outside.
the pus in surgical
bandages. He calls
Manhattan Project to build an atomic Franklin immediately knew it was
it ‘nuclein’. bomb. By the middle of 1950, Wilkins wrong – DNA’s water content meant
was assistant director of King’s College the backbone had to be on the outside.
London’s new biophysics unit. In a Embarrassed, Bragg banned the pair
dank basement underneath the from any more DNA work.
1912-14 Thames, Wilkins and PhD student
Raymond Gosling were producing
In May 1952, Franklin took Photo 51
– a stunningly clear picture of the B
William Henry
Bragg (left) and
much sharper X-ray pictures of DNA form of DNA (see ‘The Key
his son William than Astbury had managed. Experiment’, page 59). Abiding by an
Lawrence Bragg Rosalind Franklin was invited earlier agreement with Wilkins to
lay the foundations to join the unit’s DNA research in focus on the A form, she put it aside.
of X-ray crystallography when they realise
1951, bringing with her important By January 1953, Franklin had decided
they can infer the structure of crystals from
the patterns of scattered X-rays. crystallography skills after making her to leave King’s for Birkbeck College
name in Paris with X-ray insights into and began sharing her work with
the structures of coal, carbon and Wilkins. Wilkins, who had long
1920s graphite. But misunderstandings with believed that DNA was a helix, showed
Phoebus Levene discovers nucleotides – the Wilkins over her role in the DNA the image to Watson, who later wrote:
combination of a sugar, base and phosphate
group – and suggests they form short
research caused a rift that arguably “The instant I saw the picture, my
lengths of DNA called ‘tetranucleotides’. cost them the scientific race. mouth fell open and my pulse began to
One of the biggest discoveries race.” Photo 51 immediately spelt out
Franklin made in her time at King’s ‘helix’ to Watson, who returned to
was to discover, along with Gosling, Cambridge suitably inspired.
1937 that there are two forms of DNA: a In February 1953, Linus Pauling,
Florence Bell arrives
dehydrated, tightly packed ‘A’ form a giant of molecular biology and an
in William Astbury’s
lab and takes the and a hydrated, longer ‘B’ form, which expert in protein structure, proposed
first X-ray images of produced different X-ray patterns. his own structure. But with only
DNA (left). Astbury Astbury’s blurry images must have Astbury’s earlier data to go on, he got
makes an attempt been a combination of the two. it wrong. Among other basic mistakes,
at a structure the
following year. The King’s group, and Franklin in he suggested that DNA was comprised
particular, believed that the structure of three chains.
would emerge from careful X-ray Watson and Crick, concerned that
1952 work. But at the Cavendish Laboratory
in Cambridge, now headed by William
Britain would lose the race and seeing
a chance for themselves, returned to
Rosalind Franklin
takes ‘Photo 51’, a Lawrence Bragg, a pair of researchers their model-building. They knew how
highly detailed image called James Watson and Francis Crick far apart the bases were, that DNA’s
of the ‘B’ or hydrated had other ideas. backbone was on the outside of the
form of DNA. The
molecule, that the overall structure
photo is later seen
by James Watson The race heats up was a helix and that it was probably
(right) without Watson, an American researcher in made of two chains. They also saw
her knowledge. his 20s, and Crick, older with a more of Franklin’s data, this time via a
reputation for a sharp mind, did report to the biophysics committee of
1953 famously little in terms of experiments
with DNA. Instead, they chose to build
the Medical Research Council, which
funded both groups. From this, Crick
Watson and Francis Crick propose a model
for the structure of the DNA molecule. physical models to work out how was able to deduce that the chains
They publish the structure in the scientific DNA’s known components could fit in the DNA molecule look the same
journal Nature and suggest that it indicates together. Much of their experimental upside-down and must therefore run
the function of DNA.
knowledge came from seminars and in opposite directions.
GETTY X2, SCIENCE & SOCIETY X2
informal chats with Wilkins, with The final piece of the puzzle was a
whom they were on friendly terms. 1949 experiment by the biochemist
At the end of 1951, Watson and Crick Erwin Chargaff. He determined that
invited the King’s team to see their the number of As matched the number
latest model, which they believed to of Ts, and the number of Cs matched
be the structure. Informed by Watson’s the Gs. Watson and Crick realised
memory of a talk by Franklin, it was that As must always bond to Ts, and

THE STRUCTURE OF DNA
“The instant I saw the picture, my mouth

fell open and my pulse began to race”
James Watson on seeing ‘Photo 51’
NEED TO KNOW
James Watson (left) and Francis Crick
(right) pose with their model of DNA that
reveals its double-helix structure. They
Get to grips with the
won the Nobel Prize for their discovery, structure of DNA with
which they shared with Maurice Wilkins
these key terms
DOUBLE HELIX
The two chains of DNA are
coiled together, a bit like a spiral
staircase, in which the paired
bases form the steps and the
sugar-phosphate backbones
form the rails.
NUCLEOTIDE
The basic sub-unit of DNA. Each
nucleotide is made up of a base
– the ‘letters’ of DNA: adenine
(A), guanine (G), thymine (T) or
cytosine (C) – a sugar and a
phosphate group. The
nucleotides form the two
parallel complementary chains
of DNA, with adenine matched
to thymine and guanine
to cytosine.
PHOSPHATE GROUP
A phosphorous atom
surrounded by oxygen atoms.
Phosphate groups, along with
deoxyribose sugars, make up
the ‘backbone’ of the long
DNA molecule.
Cs to Gs, producing a ladder-like helix Wilkins went on to share the Nobel

with the paired bases forming the Prize in 1962.
X-RAY
rungs and the sugar-phosphate Watson and Crick wrote in their CRYSTALLOGRAPHY
backbones the sides. 1953 paper: “It has not escaped our This is the study of the
Model completed, the pair went for notice that the specific pairing we structure of crystals by firing
lunch in a nearby pub called The Eagle have postulated immediately suggests X-rays at them. The X-rays
and declared that they had found the a possible copying mechanism for the bounce off the regular
arrangements of atoms in
meaning of life. When the King’s team genetic material.”
crystals and the patterns they
visited this time, they accepted the In the years since 1953, researchers make are captured on film. An
model immediately. “Rosy’s instant have learned how DNA copies itself equation is then used to work
acceptance of our model at first and how its strings of As, Ts, Cs and out the crystal’s structure.
amazed me,” Watson wrote later. Gs provides a template for making
“Nonetheless… she accepted the proteins. More recently, analysis of the
fact that the structure was too human genome has allowed scientists
pretty not to be true.” to glimpse the intricacies of how DNA
Crick and Watson’s structure was orchestrates life.
published in the journal Nature in

April 1953, along with two articles
from King’s. None revealed the role
that the King’s data had played and by K AT H E R I N E N I G H T I N G A L E
Franklin died in 1958, perhaps never (@kathnightingale) Katherine is a science writer
having known. Watson, Crick and with a masters in molecular biology.

THE COMPOSITION OF
HUMAN CELLS
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IN A
NUTSHELL
Harnessing the power of
microscopes enabled scientists to
explore a world invisible to the
naked eye and discover that plants
and animals are comprised of
cells. Technological advances
This artist’s impression of a human
then meant we could learn
cell shows organelles surrounded how cells work.
by cytoplasm and a membrane
CAST OF CHARACTERS
The great minds who harnessed cutting-edge
technology of the time to explore cells
ROBERT HOOKE 5 1831. We now know that the nucleus
(1635-1703) contains the chromosomes of DNA and
contributed to is the seat of power from which our
fields as diverse genes regulate the rest of the cell.
as architecture, A few years after Brown named the
palaeontology and nucleus, in 1837, the German scientist
astronomy. He was Theodor Schwann was having lunch
an English researcher, with a fellow German researcher, the
born on the Isle of botanist Matthias Schleiden. Their
Wight and known for
ANTONIE VAN conversation turned to the nucleus,
his difficult manner
LEEUWENHOEK which had so far been seen only in
and rivalry with
(1632-1723) was a plants. Schleiden had observed that
fellow researcher
Dutch draper and new plant cells seemed to come
Isaac Newton.
amateur researcher. somehow from an existing nucleus.
Son of a basket maker, Schwann, who had been studying
he was an unlikely animal cells, remembered seeing
scientist, but his skill structures that could well be nuclei.
led to him producing Excited, the pair rushed to
some of the most Schwann’s laboratory to look at
advanced microscopes tadpole tissue. There were the nuclei:
of his time, and the animals must be made of cells too.
THEODOR SCHWANN discovery of single- Both scientists wrote up their
(1810-1882) was a celled organisms. findings, with Schleiden describing
German physicist cells as the ‘building blocks of life’,
born in the town and Schwann stating: “All living
of Neuss. He was things are composed of cells and
most productive cell products.” It may seem obvious
early in his career, now, but this ‘cell theory’ was
making discoveries revolutionary: all life from algae to
in digestion, the aardvarks, bacteria to begonias, was
nervous system and
made of cells.
metabolism, before
turning his attention
CAMILLO GOLGI Wealth of discoveries
to theology later in life.
(1843-1926) was The subsequent decades of the 19th
an Italian doctor century, as microscopes improved,
and researcher. He were fertile times for discovering the
concentrated his components of cells and teasing apart
work on the nervous the differences between the cells of
system, though he also animals, plants and bacteria.
strayed into malaria
Hooke, when coining the term cells,
research. Many of his
had technically discovered the cell
ALBERT CLAUDE discoveries are named
wall in 1665. Human cells don’t have a
(1899-1983) moved to after him, as is the
SCIENCE & SOCIETY, SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY X2, GETTY, ALAMY
village of his birth.

cell wall like plants and some bacteria,
the US in 1929. He was but they do have a cell membrane, a
a Belgian cell biologist layer of lipids (fatty molecules),
who served for the
proteins and other components.
British Intelligence
Though it was clear that something
Service during World
must surround animal cells, it wasn’t
War One, and was
until 1855 that the doctor Robert
rewarded with a
medical education in Remak found a way of hardening the
Belgium despite not membrane so he could see it clearly.
having the required About 70 per cent of the volume of
qualifications. the cell is cytosol, a colourless liquid
that is mostly water, plus salts and
organic molecules. Together with
components called organelles, cytosol
makes up the cell’s cytoplasm –

THE COMPOSITION OF HUMAN CELLS
“The mitochondrion is the cell’s ‘powerhouse’

because it produces a molecule that is
used as a source of chemical energy”
everything in the cell membrane aside saffron had been used to stain cells. of the best-known organelles is the
from the nucleus. Around 1835, the But in 1856, a young assistant chemist mitochondrion, now known as the
French biologist Félix Dujardin saw named William Perkin produced cell’s ‘powerhouse’ because it
this ‘life substance’ in single-celled mauve, the first synthetic dye. Though produces a molecule that is used as a
animals and named it sarcode not designed for cells, it was the first source of chemical energy. It’s possible
(meaning ‘the flesh of the cell’). of many useful synthetic dyes. that mitochondria were first seen in
In the mid-19th century, life was muscle cells by the Swiss physiologist
made a little easier for the nascent Internal organelles Albert von Kölliker in 1857. But it was
field of cell biology. Until this point a Many cellular metabolic processes Richard Altmann, in 1894, who
variety of natural dyes such as iodine, take place in the cytosol, but some established that they were organelles
cochineal and van Leeuwenhoek’s occur in dedicated organelles. One and called them ‘bioblasts’. They 5
THE KEY EXPERIMENT

Sometimes major scientific discoveries happen by chance, as Albert Claude found when
he stumbled upon a key organelle while searching for a virus in the cells of a chicken
Much was known about the cell by
the time that Albert Claude performed
his key experiment of developing cell
fractionation in 1930. But looking down a
microscope was quite different to being
able to separate out the parts of the cell
to study them individually.
Claude developed cell fractionation
while trying to isolate a virus, called Rous
Sarcoma Virus, from chicken tumours.
To do this he gently mashed up the
tumour cells with a pestle and mortar (or
sometimes a commercial meat grinder)
to break the membranes and release the
cell contents. He then put them in a tube
and spun them in a centrifuge, the force
of which speeds up the settling of heavier
particles to the bottom of the tube. By
successively spinning and extracting the
sediment, the components of the cells are
separated by size.
Claude found what he was looking
for – a virus made of Ribonucleic acid
(RNA). Good scientists run ‘control’
experiments too. In this case, Claude
needed to show that the virus was
present in only the tumour cells, and
not healthy chicken cells. But when he
repeated the process, he found that
healthy cells also had similar RNA-rich
ROCKEFELLER ARCHIVE CENTER
particles in them. He named these

mysterious organelles ‘microsomes’,
discovering for the first time an organelle
Albert Claude serendipitously discovered
that researchers using a light microscope a cell organelle, the microsome, when
simply would not have spotted. searching for a virus using a centrifuge

TIMELINE
1665
Robert Hooke’s
Micrographia is published,
in which he describes 5 were renamed mitochondria by microscopy, invented by German
using a microscope to find the German cell biologist Carl engineers in 1931. Physicists were
boxy structures in a thin Benda in 1898. already using the technology, but it
slice of cork and coins the term ‘cell’.
Another organelle was discovered as was Claude who brought it into the
a direct result of cell staining, and is realm of biology.
1675 also the only one to bear the name of Electron microscopy uses a beam of
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek uses its discoverer. In 1897, Camillo Golgi electrons as a source of illumination
his powerful microscope (left) to discovered an organelle called the and can resolve much smaller objects
discover ‘little animals’ — single- Golgi apparatus in a makeshift lab he than traditional microscopes because
celled organisms — in rainwater,
followed by bacteria from his had set up in a small hospital kitchen. the wavelength of an electron is much
own tooth scrapings in 1683. It was there that he developed the shorter than that of a photon (a packet
‘black reaction’ in which cells are of light). In 1943, Claude began
impregnated with silver nitrate, working with one of the few electron
1837 highlighting their contents under the microscopes in the US to look at
Matthias Schleiden and Theodor Schwann microscope. The Golgi appeared as a subcellular particles produced by cell
discuss the recent discovery of the nucleus fine network inside the cell, and we fractionation. In 1945, his lab was the
and realise that both plants and animals now know that it is involved in the first to use an electron microscope to
must be made up of the same basic units
packaging up of proteins and lipids image a whole cell. Claude shared the
– cells.
made by the cell. Nobel Prize in 1974 with Christian
As the 20th century dawned, most de Duve, a Belgian researcher, and
of the large components of the cell had George Palade, who later called
been spotted and named. Getting to Claude’s image the “birth certificate”
grips with what each part of the cell of cell biology.
did was going to take more than Claude’s lab was able to combine
looking, however. As the Belgian cell these techniques to determine what
biologist Albert Claude said in his mitochondria do; they may have been
1974 Nobel lecture: “Until 1930 or observed and named in 1894, but it
thereabout, biologists, in the situation was only once they had been isolated
1897 of astronomers, were permitted to see that researchers could find out
Camillo Golgi discovers the Golgi apparatus the objects of their interest, but not to their function. He found that they
in nerve cells using the ‘black reaction’, his touch them; the cell was as distant contained many enzymes (proteins
own staining technique, which involves
impregnating cells with silver nitrate (above).
from us as the stars and galaxies.” that act as catalysts) associated with
the chemical process of respiration,
Peering deeper and that they are indeed the cellular
At the same time, the tool that had power plants. He also used
1939 been their window into cells – the characteristic dyes to conclude that
SCIENCE & SOCIETY, SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY, GETTY, ALAMY, ROCKEFELLER ARCHIVE CENTER
Albert Claude develops light microscope – was coming to the organelles in his test tube were
the technique of cell
fractionation in an the end of its usefulness, unable to the same that had been seen under
attempt to isolate resolve objects smaller than the the microscope.
a chicken virus. He wavelength of light. Also in 1945 Claude, along with
discovers ribosomes and Two techniques developed in the colleague Keith Porter, used electron
isolates mitochondria
first half of the 20th century would microscopy to discover the
in the process.
come to the rescue, revealing endoplasmic reticulum (ER), a large
structures invisible to the light membranous system within the cell
microscope, confirming previous that is involved in producing proteins
findings, and working out the and lipids, and transporting them
biochemical role of organelles. around the cell. The net-like structure
The first of these, cell fractionation, had initially been spotted in 1902 by
allowed scientists to get their hands the Italian scientist Emilio Veratti,
on cellular components. Developed but the idea was discarded by the
in 1930 by Albert Claude at the scientific community at the time.
1945 Rockefeller Institute in the US, it
involved mashing up cells and then
In 1946, George Palade joined
Claude’s lab and began to refine many
Albert Claude and colleagues produce the
first electron microscope image of a cell using the process of centrifugation to of his techniques. It was Palade who
(above), which George Palade describes separate their subunits (see ‘The Key realised that the microsomes that
as cell biology’s “birth certificate”. Experiment’, page 65). The second Claude had discovered in his key
essential technique was electron experiment can be part of the ER.

THE COMPOSITION OF HUMAN CELLS
NEED TO KNOW
Key terms to help

you understand the
workings of cells
CELL
The basic unit of life —
everything is made up of cells.
Human cells have genetic-
material containing a nucleus
and membrane-enclosed
organelles, all in a watery
substance called the cytosol
and surrounded by a
cell membrane.
EUKARYOTIC
A type of cell that has a nucleus
and membrane-enclosed
organelles. Plant, animal and
fungal cells are eukaryotic,
as are some single-celled
organisms.
ORGANELLE
A cross-section of a human cell taken with an electron microscope reveals the nucleus (large oval centre) A component of the cell that
surrounded by cytoplasm. This is filled with the endoplasmic reticulum – seen as a red/orange network has its own specialised
function, in much the same way
that an organ plays a specific
He renamed them ribosomes in 1955 Researchers have discovered much role in the body. They are often
and found that they produce proteins. more about the cell since then. But it’s separated from the cell by their
We now know that the membrane of fair to say that today’s cell biologists own membrane.
the ER joins the outer membrane of the are more preoccupied with how the
nucleus, providing a highway along components work together than
which DNA is translated into proteins. finding new ones. They tease apart the
PROKARYOTIC
Part of it, the ‘rough’ ER, has ribosomes relationships between these cellular A type of cell with no nucleus,
attached, and another, the ‘smooth’ subunits – how they talk to each other mitochondria or other
membrane-enclosed
ER, produces lipids. to keep the delicate equilibrium of the
organelles. Most prokaryotes
cell’s workings in check; how they are single-celled organisms,
Waste disposal behave in certain circumstances, and such as bacteria.
Christian de Duve took these new how this knowledge can be exploited
techniques further by discovering an to develop drugs and other treatments.
organelle without using a microscope It is now possible to watch living
– he didn’t even have one in his lab at cells go about their business, using
the time. In 1949, de Duve discovered the modern versions of van
lysosomes – the waste disposal unit Leeuwenhoek’s saffron to watch
of the cell – by accident when specific parts of the cell in action.
researching insulin in rat liver cells. Today’s image of the cell is dynamic
He used cell fractionation and then – a high-definition film to the 17th
biochemical tests to determine that century’s hand-drawn sketch.
the cell’s cytoplasm contains

numerous lysosomes – membranous
particles of enzymes playing a role in
cell communication and energy by K AT H E R I N E N I G H T I N G A L E
metabolism, as well as breaking down (@kathnightingale) Katherine is a science writer
cellular components. with a masters in molecular biology.

THE THEORY OF
EVOLUTION
Charles Darwin put the pieces together, but he wasn’t the only radical thinker
when it came to evolution. Professor Rebecca Stott reveals how other naturalists
Alfred Russel Wallace and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck were also pioneers
M
ost people know that the unverifiable. Having studied under a thousand years. In 9th-century
theory of evolution did not Plato in Athens, he spent two intense Baghdad, Al-Jahiz, an Arab
appear like a bolt from the blue years examining animals and plants philosopher working at the heart of the
with the publication of Charles on the island of Lesbos in the Aegean Abbasid Empire, having been inspired
Darwin’s On the Origin of Species in Sea in an attempt to discover the laws by Aristotle’s recently translated
1859. But not many people are aware of nature through close observation volumes, set out to write his own
that the idea has been around in rather than by guesswork. Nature was compendium of zoological knowledge.
various forms for at least 2,500 years. not random and chaotic, he declared; In his seven-volume work Living
Like us, the ancient Greeks failed it was eternal and deeply, perfectly Beings, he described the natural world
to agree about the origins of life. Their patterned. Each organism fitted its in terms similar to the modern concept
cosmologies were profoundly different place. The flesh of an individual plant of ecosystems; he also saw everywhere
from our own. There were no heresy or person might bloom and decay, but what we would call the adaptation and
laws or inquisitions to fear or a species remained unchanging. diversification of species.
dominant creation story to side-step. Aristotle was no evolutionist, but Some scholars claim that Al-Jahiz
Ancient Greek cosmologies were his emphasis on close observation discovered natural selection a
wildly variant: some believed that life above speculation makes him integral thousand years before Darwin;
had been shaped by gods; others that it to this long history of evolution. He is they see natural selection in his
had come into being through atoms considered the father of biology. descriptions of systems of predation,
colliding chaotically. No work rivalled that of Aristotle’s co-dependency and survival, but
Empedocles – poet, healer, magician detailed study of species for nearly Al-Jahiz was a devout Muslim and his
and ‘controller of storms’, as well as a volumes, as an act of worship of Allah,
philosopher – produced a surreal described a natural world in which
foreshadowing of natural selection everything had been assigned its place
2,500 years ago on the island that we in a divinely ordained system. It was
now call Sicily. He proposed that life not a mutable system.
had started out as random body parts In 15th-century Milan, the painter,
– eyes, necks, arms, teeth and so on – inventor and polymath Leonardo
suspended in a primeval soup. da Vinci read Arabic and Greek
Collisions had produced random philosophy and natural sciences. One
combinations – men with the heads of the natural philosophical questions
of cattle; animals with branches for that vexed him was how fossilised
limbs. Some of these combinations oyster beds had got themselves into
ISTOCK, GETTY
had proved viable, others not. the tops of mountains. But though he
A century later, Aristotle declared Aristotle realised that the natural world was actually asked questions that would lead 19th-
Empedocles’s theory absurd and ordered, rather than being chaotic and random century geologists to evolutionary 5

IN A
NUTSHELL
Many theories have a long history,
but few are as rich as evolution.
Even the ancient Greeks touched
on evolution before the great
thinkers of the 18th and 19th
centuries bore it out with
a remarkable idea:
natural selection.
Finches that Darwin used as evidence

for a theory of evolution rest on his
masterwork On the Origin of Species
“Da Vinci took risks asking heretical questions. He may

have developed his mirror-writing technique to protect
the ideas in his notebooks from prying eyes”
5 conclusions, he was not that Through the 18th century, the do some experiments on the creatures
interested in questions of species. publication of new works on insects (he called them polyps; we know them
What da Vinci saw in fossils was and the development of microscopes as Hydra) they found in the estate’s
evidence to support his neo-Platonist inspired a generation of young men to ornamental ponds. Trembley was
beliefs: that the human body was a study the reproductive behaviour of astonished to discover that, when
microcosm of the Earth and was microscopic organisms. Occasionally he cut the organisms in half, they
subject to similar laws. Da Vinci was they discovered disturbing and regenerated themselves. Such a
taking significant risks in asking such inexplicable things. phenomenon appeared to violate the
heretical questions about the nature In the summer of 1740, Abraham prevailing understanding of natural
of the Earth. Indeed, he may have Trembley, a young Swiss tutor laws: plants re-grow after cutting;
developed his mirror-writing educating the sons of the Count of animals don’t. But the polyp did.
technique to protect the ideas in his Bentinck in The Hague, sent his young The polyp quickly became the
notebooks from the prying eyes of charges to collect pond water for the talk of European salons and were used
inquisitors and priests. microscope. He proposed that they by materialists and atheists alike to
THE KEY EXPERIMENT

Natural selection was the most important milestone in the long history of evolution,
because it provided a mechanism to explain how the theory worked
The crucial breakthrough in the history
of evolution is a ‘convergent’ one. In 1858,
while suffering from malaria on the Malay
Archipelago, Alfred Russel Wallace came
up with the idea of natural selection: the
process by which some species survive
and others die out, encapsulated in the
phrase ‘survival of the fittest’.
Charles Darwin had already found
evidence for natural selection during
his travels around South America aboard
the Beagle during the 1830s. Darwin
understood that evolution worked
through a struggle for existence in which
favourable variations would tend to
be preserved and unfavourable ones
destroyed. The result of this would be
the formation of new species. From this
point on, Darwin committed himself
to gathering more evidence. This is one
of the reasons why it took him so long
to publish his landmark book On the
Origin of the Species.
When Wallace sent him his still-
unpublished essay on natural selection
in 1858, Darwin finished his book in a
matter of weeks and rushed it to press.
The Linnaean Society declared Darwin the

first to have discovered natural selection
because he was able to submit evidence
that he had defined the idea – though not An illustration from The Malay Archipelago by Alfred Russel Wallace (1874). The work described
published it – many years before Wallace. Wallace’s thoughts that led to the idea of natural selection and a theory of evolution

THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries,
great thinkers forged the idea of evolution
demonstrate that life was to be found ERASMUS DARWIN
within material flesh not outside it. (1731-1802) was a
Debates about the nature and origins Derbyshire inventor,
of life had taken a strange new turn. poet and doctor
Altogether stranger evolutionary who proposed in
ideas began to emerge in Cairo around Zoonomia (1794-6)
the turn of the 18th century. The that all living beings
French consul here, Benoît de Maillet, had evolved from
had brought the philosophical simple aquatic
organisms. He was
questions of the French salon culture JEAN-BAPTISTE
the grandfather of
– debates about the age, origin and LAMARCK (1744-1829).
Charles Darwin.
nature of life on Earth – to Egypt. The A French professor
ancient remains he saw in the desert of invertebrates. He
suggested that the Earth was much proposed that all
older than the French Catholic priests species had evolved
claimed. The Arab traders and through great
religious leaders who Maillet met lengths of time from
proposed quite different cosmologies simple to complex
and ways of understanding the Earth’s organisms through the
formation. He became convinced that inheritance of acquired
ROBERT CHAMBERS characteristics.
Egypt – indeed, the Earth’s crust as a
(1802-1871) was a
whole – had been formed by waters
Scottish publisher and
gradually receding from a universal
encyclopaedist, who
ocean and that all humans had published Vestiges of
evolved from ‘seapeople’. Some of the Natural History
these intermediate forms, he proposed, of Creation in 1844.
still survived. He spent his fortune It was an attempt to
travelling around Europe collecting marry together all the
evidence of seamen sightings. Due to recent discoveries
the heretical nature of his claims, he in the sciences to
was unable to publish his strange propose that the Earth
book, Telliamed (his own name spelt had evolved from a
backwards) during his lifetime. It only nebulous fire mist and
began to circulate, clandestinely, half that all the species CHARLES DARWIN
a century later. on it had transmuted (1809-1882). The
from simple organisms. British naturalist
Freedom of thought published On the
By the 18th century, Paris and Origin of Species by
Amsterdam had become hubs of Natural Selection in
intellectual subversion, part of a 1859. It proposed that
network that stretched across Europe; natural selection –
anti-clerical books, pornography, the survival of the
fittest – was the
SCIENCE & SOCIETY X2, GETTY, SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY, ALAMY
atheism and books on natural science

or free thought travelled down the mechanism by which
same routes. In Paris, the newly evolution worked.
ALFRED RUSSEL
formed secret police were determined WALLACE (1823-1913)
to keep unorthodox philosophers was a British collector
under surveillance. and naturalist who in
The playwright, philosopher and 1858 co-discovered
encyclopaedist Denis Diderot was one natural selection
of the most dangerous subversives while out in the
according to the police files. Diderot Malay Archipelago.
had read papers about Trembley’s
polyps, Maillet’s Telliamed, and most
new papers and books on the natural
sciences. In his plays, philosophical
speculations and encyclopaedias, 5

TIMELINE
1748
The Telliamed,
written by Benoît
de Maillet (right) 5 he proposed that the Earth was Darwin slipped his most controversial
between 1722 and inconceivably old, that species had ideas into footnotes or into his poetry;
1732, is published mutated through time and that man his most radical theories were
posthumously.
would one day become extinct. published posthumously.
Maillet proposes
that humans have Like Maillet and his contemporary In the first decades of the 19th-
evolved from aquatic the Comte de Buffon – who slipped century, Lamarck’s influence fanned
organisms and that intermediate half- evolutionary ideas into his great out from Paris across Europe; the
animal half-fish creatures survive. volumes on the history of the animals thousands of young and idealistic
– Diderot, fearful of prison, published students who studied with him took
his most radical ideas posthumously. Lamarckian ideas like seeds back
A few decades later, the French across the world. Many used them
Revolution produced the conditions in to underpin reformist agendas.
which evolutionary ideas flourished In 1825, a 16-year-old Charles
most rapidly. There were no priests to Darwin arrived in Edinburgh to study
police philosophical questions or at medical school and was befriended
threaten inquisition. Napoleon had by a physician who had studied with
1794-6 brought the largest collection of
natural history specimens in history
Lamarck. Robert Grant, explained
Lamarck’s ideas to the young Darwin
Erasmus Darwin publishes Zoonomia,
or the Laws of Organic Life, a two-volume into the Museum of Natural History and reminded him of how remarkable
medical treatise containing a chapter in Paris, specimens looted from his grandfather Erasmus’s ideas had
called ‘Generation’ in which he proposes European palaces. He appointed 12 been. When he set off on the Beagle
that all living beings have evolved from professors to the Jardin des Plantes reading Charles Lyell’s Principles of
aquatic filaments.
to work on a number of natural Geology, he opened a notebook that he
philosophical problems, alongside titled the Transmutation Notebook.
students from all over Europe. It was His hunt for proof of the mutation of
1802 not long before the most carefully species had begun.
A Professor of
Invertebrates in Paris,
worked-out theory of evolution thus The branching and converging
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck far emerged. patterns in this history continue. In
(right), gives a lecture From 1801 until his death in 1829, Scotland in the late 1830s, as Darwin
in which he proposes the Parisian Professor of Invertebrates returned from the Beagle voyage with
that all species have and Worms, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, an embryonic theory of natural
evolved through
great lengths of time proposed that nature had worked to selection, a young publisher called
and that they have evolved transform species over unimaginable Robert Chambers found himself
through the need to adapt to the tracts of time from single-celled to converted to transmutationism by
environment. complex organisms. The environment reading accounts of Lamarck and
caused animals to adopt new habits to Erasmus Darwin’s ideas. His
survive, he claimed; in so doing they sensational book Vestiges of the
1858 produced new structures – teeth, Natural History of Creation, published
While in a delirious
fever caused by
limbs, long necks. His ideas were anonymously in 1844, was elegantly
malaria on the Malay both mocked and refuted by his more written and cheap to buy. It fused
Archipelago, Alfred powerful and influential colleague in together new discoveries in zoology,
Russel Wallace comes the Jardin, the great comparative botany and geology to give an account
up with the idea of anatomist Georges Cuvier. of Earth’s history and of the evolution
natural selection.
of species. Vestiges made a number
Thinking alike of mistakes in its accounts of new
Lamarck and Erasmus Darwin scientific discoveries and shocked
1859 reached similar conclusions about the the establishment to its core. But, by
SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY, GETTY, ALAMY X3
Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin evolution of species at about the same bringing evolution into the drawing
of Species in which he provides detailed time, without knowing each other and rooms of the public, it paved the way
evidence for natural selection, as well by different routes. Darwin, who was a for new, more evidence-based theories.
as a carefully poet and inventor as well as a doctor, A remarkable young land surveyor
extended
argument for
proposed that all organisms had once called Alfred Russel Wallace read
this being the been aquatic filaments in a universal Vestiges in the Leicester public library
mechanism by ocean. Such ideas were dangerous; in the late 1840s. A few weeks later, he
which evolution in the wake of the revolution, Darwin read Thomas Robert Malthus’s Essay
works. and his philosopher friends were also On the Principle of Population.
under surveillance. Like Diderot, Vestiges, Wallace told friends, was the

THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION
NEED TO KNOW
Important terms
surrounding the
theory of evolution
LAMARCKISM
OR LAMARCKIAN
EVOLUTION
Also known as soft inheritance,
it’s the idea that an organism
can pass on characteristics
acquired during its lifetime to
its offspring. It is named after
the French biologist
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck.
NATURAL SELECTION
The key mechanism of
evolution. This is the process by
which biological traits become
more or less common in a
population as a result of the
Napoleon’s specimen collection at the Museum of Natural History in Paris sparked a surge of interest in effects of inherited traits on
theories of how life on Earth was able to become so diverse the reproductive success of
organisms. Sometimes called
‘the survival of the fittest’,
book he’d been waiting for all his life: When Wallace wrote to him in it was co-discovered by
a coherent account of the history of the 1858 and sent him his essay on natural Wallace and Darwin.
Earth. But Wallace was also frustrated selection, Darwin was devastated. He
at the lack of proof Vestiges provided. brought in his friends to adjudicate:
When he set off with his friend he needed to know the gentlemanly TRANSMUTATION
Edward Bates to collect natural history way to behave. The Linnaean Society An early term employed to
specimens in Brazil, he determined to gathered and made their judgement: describe evolution. It was used
bring back the evidence. Darwin had drafted the idea 10 years alongside others, such as the
development theory or
Ten years later, an exhausted before Wallace. Wallace gracefully
transformism. British scientists
Wallace, hallucinating his way conceded. He explained that he’d like Charles Lyell sometimes
through a malaria attack on an island never claimed priority and instead used it to discredit the theory
in the Malay Archipelago, suddenly was honoured to be associated with by implying a connection
saw how evolution might work: “It the idea and with the distinguished with alchemy or magic –
occurred to me to ask the question, Charles Darwin. transmutation being a key term
Why do some die and some live?” he Historians still debate the ethics of in alchemical theory.
wrote. “And the answer was clear, that that decision, but as a consequence
on the whole the best fitted survive…” Wallace returned to his beloved
Back in Britain, Charles Darwin fieldwork while Darwin began the
already knew this. He’d begun to put long and difficult campaign to defend
his theory of natural selection together the theory. Darwin, with his collection
in his notebooks of the 1830s and, by of detailed evidence, his persuasive
1844, had developed these ideas into rhetorical skills, reputation, status and
an unpublished essay. But that essay wide circle of supporters, was without
was still locked away in a drawer. doubt the better man for that task.
Busy working on the Beagle collection,
distracted by an eight-year project on
barnacles, and alarmed at the amount
of vitriol Vestiges had drawn from the by P RO F R E B E C C A S T O T T
establishment, he’d determined to
ALAMY
(@RebeccaStott64) Prof Stott is the author of

bide his time. Darwin’s Ghosts: in search of the first evolutionists.

THE HISTORY OF
BRAIN RESEARCH Doctors and neuroscientists have been attempting to unravel the
secrets of the brain for centuries – but it has proved a tough nut
to crack. Dr Christian Jarrett charts the major discoveries
ome, 2nd century AD. An Throughout much of history, our capacity for thought than “a cake of
R audience of philosophers and

politicians has gathered to watch
Galen of Pergamon, the ‘prince of
understanding of the brain was often
more of a philosophical than a
scientific pursuit. This is partly
suet or a bowl of curds”.
One of the most influential brain
dissectors who helped overturn these
physicians’, perform a public because, until the last century, the beliefs was the English doctor Thomas
demonstration involving a pig. The biological study of our grey matter Willis. He authored the magisterial
animal’s squealing falls suddenly was mostly dependent on post-mortem book Anatomy of the Brain, published
silent as Galen severs its laryngeal investigations of animal brains and in 1664. Willis made astute and
nerve – the neural link connecting bodies, and only more rarely – thanks visionary arguments that complex
its voice box to its brain. The crowd to a long-running church ban – human mental functions are carried out by
audibly gasps with astonishment. brains. It’s amazing to think that as the cerebral cortex. This part of the
Why were they so shocked? Galen late as 1652, the philosopher Henry brain had long been seen as little more
had just proved that the brain, not More wrote that the brain had no more than a useless ‘rind’ – cortex means
the heart, controls behaviour. ‘rind’ or ‘husk’ in Latin.
This might not sound ground- The continuing lack of scientific
breaking to our modern ears, but the knowledge about the brain allowed
historian Charles Gross describes mistaken theories to survive until
it as “one of the most famous single quite recently, theories that seem
physiological demonstrations of all absurd by modern standards. For
time.” Although Galen wasn’t the first example, another long-running belief
to recognise the brain’s functional (this one strongly endorsed by Galen)
importance, he was the first to carry was that the brain pumps ‘animal
out a public experiment supporting spirits’ around the body. Physicians
his case. In Galen’s time, the and scientists believed right up until
‘cardiocentric view’ – the idea that the 18th century that nerves were
thought, mind and soul are located in filled with these animal spirits –
SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY, GREG DUNN
the heart – remained dominant and bizarre entities that the philosopher
would do so for centuries. Its legacy René Descartes described as “a very
lives on today with sayings such as fine wind”. The breakthrough that led
“learn things by heart”. to this idea being overturned had to do
The pig demonstration reflects the with electricity and specifically the
longer story of how we’ve come to emergence of electrotherapy as a
understand the brain – it’s a tale of treatment for paralysis.
Christopher Wren’s highly detailed illustrations
colourful characters, ghoulish complemented Thomas Willis’s writings about Public demonstrations again played
experiments and stubborn myths. the brain’s anatomy their part in changing minds. In an 5

This artist’s impression of a human

brain shows the organ is filled with
a stunning array of nerve cells
(neurons), each playing its vital
part in helping the brain to regulate
and control the mind and body
“Previously, researchers had to make

assumptions. With EEG they could see how
different brain regions became more active”
5 event held in 1803 in London, for today as Broca’s area, and he inferred these chemicals, known as
example, Giovanni Aldini (nephew of that the damaged region must play an neurotransmitters, are then picked
the pioneering anatomist Luigi important role in speech. up on the other side by the receiving
Galvani) applied electricity to George Broca’s presentation of Leborgne’s neuron. In the late 1800s, however,
Forster’s brain to show how it caused case to the Société d’Anthropologie even the best microscopes and
the muscles of his face to twitch. and the Société Anatomique in 1861 staining methods were incapable of
Forster didn’t know much about this was instrumental in convincing the revealing the presence of these gaps
– he’d just been hanged for the murder academic community that language between neurons. This led the Italian
of his wife and child. But for the function is particularly dependent scientist Camillo Golgi and his
audience it helped to show how on the frontal lobes. The historian contemporaries to propose that nerves
electricity was part of the way that Stanley Finger describes this moment are fused together – an erroneous idea
nerves communicate. as a “key turning point in the history known as the ‘reticular theory’ (from
Even as the scientific establishment of the brain sciences”. Patients like the Latin for ‘net’).
came to recognise the brain’s Leborgne, with particular mental or It was the Spanish neuroscientist
functional significance, however, physical deficits tied to specific areas Santiago Ramón y Cajal who killed
another mistaken dogma persisted – of brain damage, have been one of the off the nerve net idea thanks to his
the idea that mental functions, such most important sources of information advances in cell staining techniques,
as language, are distributed uniformly about the workings of the brain, and which made it clear that neurons are
throughout the cortex rather than this is still true today. not joined together after all.
being partly localised in specific At the end of the 19th century, brain
brain regions. science was focused once again on the Brain activity
One historical patient played a perplexing issue of how exactly nerves In the 20th century, technology began
particularly important role in helping manage to communicate with each to play an increasingly important role
to overturn this idea. His name was other. While the earlier realisation of in advancing our knowledge of the
GETTY, WIKIPEDIA COMMONS

Louis Victor Leborgne, but he was electricity’s role had helped to debunk brain, particularly by allowing
nicknamed ‘Tan’, because this was the notion of animal spirits, it was psychologists and neuroscientists
virtually the only word he could utter. clear that there was more to nerve to monitor brain activity. In the
At autopsy, the French neurologist communication. We know today that 1920s, scientists started to use
Paul Broca discovered that Leborgne electrical current along a nerve cell electroencephalography (EEG), which
had highly localised damage to a (neuron) causes it to release chemicals involves recording electricity emitted
region in his left frontal cortex, known across a tiny gap – a synapse – and by the brain through electrodes placed
TIMELINE 1830s
Phrenology reaches the
C.130-210 peak of its popularity. This
was the mistaken idea that
In the 2nd century, the psychological aptitudes and
philosopher Galen of personality traits can be
Pergamon performs the discerned from the bumps
pig demonstration (see on someone’s skull.
p74), showing that the
brain controls behaviour.
425 BC
The Hippocratic treatise 1543 1848
On the Sacred Disease Renaissance anatomist Railway worker Phineas
states, contrary to the Andreas Vesalius publishes Gage becomes one of the
dominant cardiocentric his landmark book On the most famous patients in
view, that “from the brain Fabric of the Human Body, neuroscience after surviving
and the brain only arise our showing some of the an accident in which an iron
pleasures, joys, laughter and most detailed dissections rod passes straight through
jests, as well as our sorrows, of the human brain the front of his brain,
pains, griefs and tears.” ever produced. changing his personality.

THE HISTORY OF BRAIN RESEARCH
Quadriplegic Jan
Scheuermann uses
thought to control a
robotic arm
on the scalp. Previously, researchers possible to use recorded brain activity

had to make assumptions about the patterns to communicate with some
location of different mental functions patients who were previously thought
based on the effects of brain injury and to be in a non-communicative,
by looking for patterns of damage at persistent vegetative state.
post-mortem. With EEG they could see But, although we’ve made great
how different regions of the brain strides in our understanding of the
become more active depending on brain, the truth is that we’ve barely
what the person was saying, thinking scratched the surface of this highly
or doing. But the problem with EEG is complex organ. And, sadly,
that while it provides good temporal devastating illnesses such as
resolution – revealing changes in Alzheimer’s and motor neurone
brain activity from one millisecond to disease still remain incurable. Let’s
the next – its spatial resolution is approaches to brain function. In 2013, hope this changes with the record
crude. This limitation was overcome a review of the field estimated that levels of investment being ploughed
in the 1960s with the advent of over 130,000 fMRI research studies into new neuroscience research
GETTY, ALAMY, SUZANNE CORKIN/ALLEN LANE/PENGUIN BOOKS
positron emission tomography (PET), had been published, a figure that will programmes, such as the BRAIN
which allowed researchers to monitor by now be substantially higher. Initiative in the US and the Human
changing patterns of blood flow in the Brain Project in Europe. A key player
brain in high resolution. Things The next step in the latter project is neuroscientist
progressed even further in the 1990s Increasingly sophisticated methods and entrepreneur Henry Markram,
with the emergence of functional for recording and decoding brain who in a TED talk said: “It is not
magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), activity have helped contribute impossible to build a human brain.”
which also has good spatial resolution to important neuroscience He made that claim back in 2009 and
but, unlike PET, does not require the breakthroughs in recent years. For in the decade since, his project has got
injection of a radioactive isotope. example, there has been huge progress a lot closer to reaching that goal.
fMRI has had a huge influence on in brain-machine interfaces, which
the study of the brain and is now enable paralysed people to control
the principal technique used in computer cursors or prosthetic limbs by D R C H R I S T I A N JA R R E T T
cognitive neuroscience, merging using thought alone. (@Psych_Writer) Dr Jarrett is a neuroscientist
psychological and biological Other research has shown that it’s and author of Great Myths of the Brain.
1901 1953 2013

Alois Alzheimer Patient Henry Molaison President Barack Obama
the German psychiatrist, undergoes brain surgery launches the BRAIN
makes detailed notes on for intractable epilepsy. Initiative. “As humans, we
Auguste Deter, the first Doctors remove a section can identify galaxies light-
person to be diagnosed of his brain, including the years away, we can study
with Alzheimer’s disease. hippocampus, leaving him particles smaller than an
“I have lost myself,” she with profound amnesia. atom. But we still haven’t
tells Alzheimer. He becomes one of unlocked the mystery of the
neuroscience’s most three pounds of matter that
studied individuals. sits between our ears.”
1913 1985
Santiago Ramón y Cajal, The British neurologist
the Spanish neuroscientist Oliver Sacks publishes his
publishes Degeneration and best-selling book The Man
Regeneration of the Nervous Who Mistook His Wife for a
System, a book that details Hat. He becomes renowned
his ground-breaking findings for chronicling the human
on brain injury and recovery. element in stories of brain
But Ramón y Cajal also illness and injury. The New
claimed, in error, that new York Times once called
neurons do not grow in Sacks “the Poet Laureate
adult brains. of medicine”.

GETTY
THE NEXT BIG STEPS FOR
SCIENCE
The Future of GENETICS 80
SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY Breakthroughs 83
Searching for DARK MATTER 86
The Existence of BLACK HOLES 90
The End of the UNIVERSE 96
THE NEXT BIG STEPS FOR SCIENCE
THE FUTURE OF
GENETICS
The latest discoveries and cutting-edge genetic
techniques being developed in labs around the world
EPIGENETICS
Dr Nessa Carey reveals HOW IT WORKS
how diet, lifestyle and the How epigenetic modifications are passed on to our kids
environment affect your genes DNA is curled around proteins different modifications, especially
called histones. When a cell receives to histone proteins, and they come
signals from the environment, in a dizzying array of combinations,
F
rancis Crick and James Watson tiny chemical modifications are creating vast flexibility in gene
became household names for made to the DNA and to the expression. And because cells pass
their 1953 discovery of the histone proteins. These are called on the same pattern of epigenetic
structure of DNA, a breakthrough epigenetic modifications, and modifications to daughter cells
that formed the basis for our they regulate expression from when they divide, these effects on
understanding of how attributes are the DNA. There is a huge range of gene expression are maintained.
passed on from one generation to the
Each histone
next. But DNA – the genome – isn’t the Epigenetic modifications has a tail
whole of the story. can occur on a strand
Since the 1970s, the role of the of DNA as well as on
histone proteins
‘epigenome’ has come under ever-
greater scrutiny. The epigenome is
the name given to tiny chemical DNA wraps around
proteins called histones,
modifications, to DNA and the which cluster together
proteins it wraps around, made by in groups of eight
factors such as environment and diet.
So, while your green eyes or dark Epigenetic
skin are due to the DNA you inherited modifications
from your mother, your wiry build are also
found on the
could have something to do with how histones’ tails
your grandmother was living while
she was carrying her.
Does this mean that the Darwinian generation. Even when they do, not a get-out. The most important
model of evolution is dead? Of course the modifications and the effects things that are happening to your
it doesn’t, even though there are now they cause tend to die out within a health are happening here and now:
epigeneticists who refer to themselves few generations. no one gains weight in 2015 just
as neo-Lamarckians (see page 72). Despite this, there is an increasing because their grandad had a fondness
Most of the time, eggs and sperm are and facile tendency to ‘blame’ for doughnuts in the 1960s.
protected from epigenetic changes to epigenetic inheritance for current
the environment, and relatively few problems, especially with respect by D R N E S S A C A R E Y (@NessaCarey)
newly established modifications are to the human obesity epidemic. Dr Carey is a molecular biologist and
likely to make it through to the next Fascinating though this field is, it’s author of The Epigenetics Revolution.

GENETICS
MAKING GM BABIES
There are several techniques for creating a baby from three parents. Here are two of them…
Spindle Transfer Pronuclear Transfer Patient egg with faulty

mtDNA fertilised
Donor egg
1 2 1 Donor
egg 2
Patient’s fertilised
egg with
faulty
mtDNA Patient’s male
Donor’s male and female
and female pronuclei
pronuclei removed
removed
Nuclear
DNA
discarded
Nuclear DNA
Remainder of egg
transferred Rest of egg
containing mitochondrial
to donor egg discarded
DNA (mtDNA)
Remainder
3 Reconstructed
egg with healthy Pronuclei of egg
Nuclear
DNA
discarded containing transferred
mtDNA fertilised mtDNA Rest of egg
discarded
3
Reconstructed egg
4 Embryo implanted containing nuclear
into patient 4 DNA from both
parents, and mtDNA
from donor
our mitochrondrial DNA from nuclear DNA removed from her eggs
GM BABIES our mothers. and implanted into a donor egg
Malfunctioning mitochondria can carrying healthy mitochondria. The
Zoe Cormier looks at children produce a wide variety of illnesses for egg is then fertilised with sperm from
with three parent families which we have no cure. It is estimated the father before being implanted into
that one in 200 children in the UK the mother’s uterus for pregnancy to
carries some form of genetic mutation continue as usual.
ack in February 2015, Parliament that could lead to mitochondrial On 25 July 1978, Louise Brown –
B voted to amend the 2008 Human

Fertilisation and Embryology Act
to allow ‘three-parent IVF’ for families
disease at some point in life. Every
year, one in 6,500 babies is born with a
mitochondrial condition so severe that
the first test tube baby – was born in
Oldham General Hospital. At the time,
concerns were raised about
that carry mitochondrial diseases. they will not reach adulthood. ‘Frankenbabies’ and ‘playing God’, and
These diseases are coded some members of the public subjected
in the genes and are passed from mum Altered embryos the parents to hate mail. Today,
to child via the mitochondrion, the The technique that was legalised in however, more than five million
‘battery’ of a cell. the UK at the beginning of 2015 will children have been born via IVF.
Human egg cells contain allow a mother to give birth to a baby Ultimately, doctors are confident
mitochondria the way most cells do, that is genetically hers, but there that this new technique will follow in
but sperm cells only have them in will not be the risk of it inheriting the path of IVF to become a routine
their tails. During fertilisation, the mitochondria with dangerous treatment that could transform lives. 5
head of the sperm, which contains mutations. The process is known
its genes, is inserted into the egg. as ‘mitochondrial donation’ or by Z O E C O R M I E R (@zoecormier)
The tail of the sperm – and therefore ‘mitochondrial transfer’. Zoe is a freelance science journalist and
its mitochondria – is left behind. A mother-to-be carrying faulty author of Sex, Drugs & Rock n Roll: the
This is why all of us only inherit mitochondria can opt to have her science of hedonism.

GENE EDITING CRISPR

Dr JV Chamary looks at a new molecular biology technique A powerful DNA
editing technique
T
he most powerful new technique genome, whereas CRISPR can also
in molecular biology is the remove a person’s faulty gene at a
CRISPR-Cas9 system – known specific place. Researchers have 1
as ‘CRISPR’. already used CRISPR to fix conditions
CRISPRs (Clustered Regularly like inherited liver disease in mice.
Interspaced Short Palindromic Unlike most gene-editing
Repeats) are sequences of DNA letters, techniques, CRISPR is revolutionary
first discovered in E. coli in 1987. A because the technology is precise. It’s
decade later, researchers revealed that also quick, cheap and easy to use – so
Scientists design a ‘CRISPR’ made from
CRISPRs form part of an anti-viral simple that even amateurs can use it,
RNA. It includes a series of letters that
defence system used by bacteria and including so-called ‘biohackers’.
matches a unique DNA sequence within
other microbes: after a virus invades a Biohacker labs around the world, such
an organism’s genome.
cell, enzymes cut and paste bits of the as the London Biohackspace, might
viral genome between CRISPR one day use CRISPR editing for their
sequences in the cell’s DNA. This do-it-yourself biology projects. 2
leaves a genetic memory for an RNA
‘guide’ that an enzyme called ‘Cas9’ Playing safe
uses to recognise and destroy viral Anyone who tinkers with nature can
DNA, should an invader return. In be accused of ‘playing God’. It’s
2012, bioengineers showed that the understandable that critics might
RNA guide could be reprogrammed worry about amateurs meddling with
The CRISPR molecule is attached to
to target any DNA sequence. organisms they don’t understand. But
‘Cas9’ (shown here in beige). This is
One of CRISPR’s most useful CRISPR is merely a tool – you still
an enzyme that uses its RNA ‘guide’ to
applications is gene therapy – to treat have to have an idea of what genes
recognise the target DNA sequence.
or even cure a disease by correcting you want to turn on and off. Plus,
a patient’s DNA. In traditional gene biohacking is limited by the resources
therapy approaches, a vector such as available to a typical DIY bio lab. 3
a harmless virus is used to deliver
a working gene to compensate for a by D R J V C H A M A RY (@jvchamary)
defective copy. This inserts new DNA Dr Chamary is a biologist and author of
at a random location in the human 50 Biology Ideas You Really Need to Know.
The CRISPR-Cas9 tool cuts the strands

of the target DNA’s double helix, then
the cell’s repair machinery will fix the
damage – minus the old DNA sequence.
The CRISPR technique can be used to

delete unwanted DNA, or to find and
J V CHAMARY
replace a sequence by adding genetic

material – such as a new gene.
Biohackspace director Ilya Levantis (far right) discussing future plans with artist Lena Asai (centre) and other members

6 SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY
BREAKTHROUGHS
THAT COULD CHANGE THE WORLD
From new cancer treatments to DNA-based computers,
Dr Adam Rutherford reports on how biological engineering
could power a technological revolution
GETTY

“NASA has designed a biocapsule out of

carbon nanofibres, which will be implanted
underneath the skin of an astronaut”
Cytokine proteins are usually
produced within the body’s
1. IMMUNITY TO RADIATION white blood cells
Shielding astronauts from health hazards in space

At Ames Research Centre in Silicon At Ames, they are designing a
Valley, NASA scientists are looking at synthetic biological circuit that will
how to equip astronauts to endure produce cytokines – the body’s own
the extreme hostility of space. defences against radiation damage
One of the biggest barriers to – when it meets space radiation. But
human exploration is that with where do you put it? Having free-
current propulsion technology, floating synthetic bacteria in your
trips will take years. That exposes body is not a good idea. So NASA
astronauts to mutagenic and life- has designed a biocapsule out of
threatening levels of solar radiation carbon nanofibres whose pores are
and cosmic rays. Radiation slices too small to let the bacteria escape,
up DNA, which can cause all sorts but big enough to let the cytokines
of problems, not least cancers. But they produce out. This capsule will
shielding is heavy, making it costly be implanted underneath the skin
to launch off Earth. of an astronaut.
A capsule containing bacteria and

nutrients that were developed
to detect rotting meat
3. OCEAN CLEANERS
Engineered microbes to clean the seas
The 2012 iGEM runners-up from University College London
(UCL) came up with the idea of cleaning up the oceans by
assembling a plastic island. There are millions of tonnes of
plastic rubbish floating around in the oceans – mostly as
billions of tiny fragments. These can accumulate in ocean
gyres – areas where currents meet, causing a vortex – and
enter the food chain, often killing wildlife.
UCL’s team designed salt-tolerant, buoyant bacteria that
would identify plastic fragments and either degrade them
or aggregate them into lumps, which could be collected into
an island they called – in James Bond villain style – the
Plastic Republic.
With safety in mind and to ensure no environmental
contamination, the bugs were engineered with a ‘kill switch’,
so that their DNA was not able to spread to other organisms.
2. CELLULAR TOOLSETS
Synthetic biologists playing with building bricks
Anyone who travels knows what of biology more apparent than
a pain it is to have the right power in the International Genetically
adaptor. In electronics, parts were Engineered Machine (iGEM)
standardised decades ago, so that competition. The challenge is to
every time you needed a diode you design synthetic life using only the
SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY, IGEM, ALAMY
didn’t have to invent it. parts available from a ‘shopping

Genetic engineering has been catalogue’ of synthetic biology.
slow to catch up, but now the Each part is free and, in principle,
BioBricks Foundation is striving standardised to fit together with
to make synthetic biology more the others.
productive and creative by making In 2012, one team created a
the parts fit together easily. And bacterium that changes colour In 2012, a team from UCL proposed a
method for cleaning up the oceans
nowhere is the commodification in the presence of rotting meat. using genetically engineered bacteria

SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY
A team at MIT has built DNA

circuits that can perform logic
operations and store the results
4. CANCER ASSASSINS
Genetic circuits to eradicate cancerous cells
The most effective ways to treat identified as cancerous and the
cancers are still chemotherapy circuit activates the cell’s own
and radiotherapy. Although these suicide programme. Compared
techniques are getting more precise in to the blunderbuss approach of
targeting malignant cells, they still kill radiotherapy, this is a sniper. So far,
many healthy cells, making the patient this only works in one type of cancer
sick during their treatment. cell, called HeLa, and only in a culture,
Back in 2011, Ron Weiss and his not yet in animal models.
team at MIT designed a genetic circuit More recently, researchers at the
that slots into a harmless virus, University of California and MIT have 5. BIO-COMPUTING
which then infects a cell. Once in come up with another strategy. They Biological circuits could be the future
there, it effectively asks the cell five engineered a bacterium to produce
biological questions. If the answer cancer drugs and then self-destruct, Lifeforms are much more complex than the most powerful
to any of these molecular queries is releasing the drugs at a tumour. The computers – but noisier too, meaning that the underlying
negative, the circuit deactivates. If all technique was tested on mice and logic is not always linear, clean or obvious. Part of the work
five answers are positive, the cell is found to reduce tumour size. of the synthetic biology movement has been to strip out
the noise of biological systems and reduce them to their
component parts, ready for re-building.
The result could be super-compact systems that can store
information for tens of thousands of years. Back in 2013,
there were a couple of high points in the computerisation of
biological circuits. In February, MIT scientists programmed a
circuit out of DNA that could store memory for up to 90 cell
generations – roughly nine days – using logic functions akin
to those in electronics. A month later, another team published
a system of DNA that works like a transistor – the essential
component behind all modern electronics.
HeLa cancer cells in a In 2016, MIT scientists created a programming language,
culture can be destroyed
by a genetic circuit
allowing them to rapidly design complex, DNA-encoded
circuits that give new functions to living cells.
6. ANTI-MALARIAL WEAPONS
More effective malaria drugs are on the horizon
Malaria has killed more humans than anything else in history. Up to Enter Jay Keasling. While trying to design a genetic circuit that would
a million people still die from the disease each year and the WHO produce diesel in his labs at the University of California, Berkeley,
estimates that the financial burden of treating malaria in sub-Saharan one of his students noticed that a by-product was closely related to
Africa since the 1960s has been hundreds of billions of dollars. artemisinin and they decided to follow this up. Built from 12 genes
Since the 17th century, we’ve tackled it with a series of treatments, from three different organisms, the first successful cellular synthetic
such as quinine and chloroquine with limited success. The problem artemisinin producer was published in 2006.
with this kind of serial medical monogamy is that the parasites After major investment from The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
evolve resistance. For that reason, the most effective (as well as a number of other investors), the drug was
treatment today is a cocktail of drugs, including the developed. Recently, market forces have hindered the
key ingredient artemisinin. It’s an distribution to malaria zones, but this story marks
extract from a sweet wormwood, an Red blood cells infected the first great product of synthetic biology.
with malaria parasites
Asian shrub that’s been used in folk in a blood sample taken The revolution has begun.
medicine for centuries. But wormwood from a patient in Africa
is finicky to grow and over the last few
years the artemisinin market has been by D R A DA M RU T H E R F O R D
subject to boom and bust cycles, and (@AdamRutherford)
hence fluctuating supply and costs. Dr Rutherford presents Radio 4’s Inside Science.

SEARCHING FOR
DARK MATTER
For decades, top astronomers have been on an enormous treasure hunt
for the Universe’s most mysterious substance. But if we can’t see it,
how on Earth do we know it even exists? Colin Stuart explains
Q Why do scientists think that dark

matter exists?
further a planet is from the Sun, the
longer it takes to orbit it. But that’s not
something strange going on. If we see
a large amount of mass, say a cluster
A The first clues that everything

in the Universe was not as it
seemed came in the 1930s. Swiss-
what Oort found. The outer stars were
zipping about faster than they should
be. In order to explain why they stayed
of galaxies, move in front of a distant
light source, then the foreground
object is able to bend the light from
American astronomer Fritz Zwicky bound to the Milky Way despite their the background object around it. This
was looking at a group of galaxies and lofty speeds, he supposed there was light creates a series of arcs that can
working out how fast the individual some invisible material with join together to form what’s known as
galaxies were moving. To his surprise, gravitational power spread throughout an ‘Einstein ring’. The more mass there
he found them careering around at the Galaxy. By 1980, American is, the greater the amount of bending.
speeds far greater than he expected. In astronomer Vera Rubin had spotted Yet there is often not enough visible
fact, they were moving so fast that they the same effect in around 100 other mass in the cluster to account for the
should have quickly dispersed, galaxies. Whatever this invisible stuff amount of bending we observe. Again,
breaking away from the gravity of was, it was widespread. there must be extra mass that’s hidden
everything else in the cluster. Except Today, an effect known as from view.
they weren’t. Zwicky was forced to gravitational lensing provides even
surmise that there must be more stuff
in the cluster that was boosting its
more evidence to suggest there is
Q What do scientists think dark
matter is?
overall gravitational pull and keeping
the galaxies tied together. The
discrepancy wasn’t small either. He
A Physicists have a cookbook for
the Universe known as the
Standard Model of particle physics. By
estimated there was 400 times more using its recipes, they can account for
matter present than he could see. At a the behaviour of forces and the way
loss to explain what this mysterious particles interact with one another.
material was, he called it ‘dunkle This model has been validated many
materie’ – German for dark matter. times over, including by experiments
At the same time, Dutch astronomer at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. The
Jan Oort was forced to invoke book’s final missing page was the
something similar. He was looking at recently discovered Higgs boson.

the stars orbiting near the edge of the And yet there is nothing within those
Milky Way. He expected to find that recipes that allows physicists to cook
the further he looked from the galactic up anything with the observed
centre, the slower the stars would be behaviour of dark matter. It has to be
rotating around it. This idea isn’t Vera Rubin studied a large number of galaxies and able to interact with normal matter via
dissimilar to our Solar System: the found that the effects of dark matter are widespread gravity – and yet in order to remain 5

IN A
NUTSHELL
Around 85 per cent of the mass
of the Universe is made up of dark
matter that can’t be directly
observed. It does not emit light or
energy, and yet often the gravity
in a particular location seems
stronger, suggesting some
invisible matter.
“In an attempt to explain this behaviour,

physicists have come up with a new type
of particle: WIMPS”
5 hidden, it cannot interact with Compact Halo Objects, the idea is that of dark matter particles are streaming
light. In an attempt to explain this there are big objects, such as black unhindered through you every single
behaviour, physicists have come up holes, ghosting unseen through the second. And yet, on average, in any
with a new type of particle: Weakly Milky Way. When we add up all the five-minute period, only one of these
Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs). mass we can see, we aren’t including dark matter particles interacts with an
They are ‘weakly interacting’ because them, hence why we underestimate atom of normal matter in your body.
they don’t interact with light and the mass of the Galaxy. This idea that dark matter particles
‘massive’ as they interact via gravity. do occasionally deign to interact with
When astronomers run computer
simulations of a Universe that evolves Q What are scientists doing to
find dark matter?
normal matter is the basis for the Large
Underground Xenon experiment deep
with dark matter in the form of
WIMPs, they get a structure that is a
pretty solid match for the distribution
A How do you find something that
is, by definition, hidden from
view? You certainly can’t see it. To
under the surface of South Dakota.
Scientists have commandeered an
abandoned gold mine and set up a
of galaxies that we see today. A theory make things worse, WIMPs are so dark matter detector 1.6km down.
for physics beyond the Standard ghostly that they almost always pass Consisting of 370kg of liquid xenon
Model called supersymmetry also straight through normal matter – shielded by 264,979 litres of water, it
seems to fit with this picture. including any detector you build is designed to pick up the occasional
Other explanations have been to snare one. WIMP interacting with the xenon.
considered in the past, including To put it into perspective, dark Should a WIMP recoil off a xenon
MACHOs. Standing for MAssive matter is so abundant that billions atom, the atom is accelerated through
the liquid, causing a flash that can be
picked up by the surrounding banks
of super-sensitive cameras.
Scientists might also be able to
If they exist, detect dark matter when it interacts
DARK MATTER billions of dark
matter particles
with itself in a process known as
IN NUMBERS are passing
annihilation. When this happens, it is
thought a cascade of ‘normal’ particles
through your body is produced and we should be able to
every second.
pick that up. One such experiment is
Only around
the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer
100,000
a year interact with
(AMS-02) currently strapped to the
International Space Station. It is trying
to pick up evidence of atomic shrapnel
the atoms inside coming from WIMP annihilations
your body.
near the galactic centre.
The Sun could help too. As the
biggest thing in the Solar System it
should be acting as a giant cosmic
264,979
vacuum cleaner, sweeping up dark
matter particles as it treks through the
86
strings carrying Galaxy. Some of the dark matter
detectors were litres of water are needed to particles should annihilate inside the
lowered 2,500 shield the subterranean Large Sun, producing a stream of normal
metres below Underground Xenon dark particles. Unfortunately, the Sun is so
the surface of the Antarctic matter detector from being dense that almost all of these daughter
ice to hunt for evidence of contaminated by radiation particles remain trapped inside.
dark matter annihilations. from the Earth’s surface. However, one type of particle –
13
neutrinos – would make it out and
terraelectronvolts
is the record-breaking energy with which
travel across space to us. Experiments
such as IceCube, stationed on
Antarctica, are set up to gather these
tell-tale signals.
the new souped-up Large Hadron Collider Then there is the Large Hadron
is smashing particles together in an attempt
Collider (LHC). On 5 May 2015, the
to unlock the secrets of dark matter.
experiment began smashing protons
together after a two-year shutdown

SEARCHING FOR DARK MATTER
WHAT IS THIS?
NEED TO KNOW
Understand
dark matter with
these terms
ANNIHILATION
The process by which two dark
matter particles come together,
creating a cascade of new
When astronomers look at the Universe on the largest scales, they see huge clusters of galaxies strung out on particles. We’re attempting to
long filaments, which border enormous cosmic voids. They explain this distribution by suggesting dark matter detect this with various
provides a ‘scaffold’ by drawing ordinary matter together with its gravitational influence. experiments around the world
and in space.
designed to boost the machine’s that gravity behaves differently on GRAVITATIONAL

power. Hopefully, by colliding different scales. LENSING
particles with more energy than ever A prediction of Einstein’s
before, nature may begin to reveal
more secrets of its inner workings. Q Has dark matter got anything
to do with dark energy?
General Theory of Relativity,
which says that mass bends
Q Could dark matter be

something else?
A No. Dark energy is the name
given to the mysterious entity
thought to be accelerating the overall
light. However, astronomers
often see more bending than
the amount of visible material
A So far we’ve been assuming expansion of the Universe – a sort of present would suggest.
that dark matter is tangible, anti-gravity. In contrast, dark matter
something that truly exists. But what can be thought of as gravitational glue NEUTRINO
if it doesn’t? What if it’s a phantom – a that helps bind galaxies and clusters of A small, almost massless
symptom of the fact that we don’t galaxies together. We’re literally in the particle created by nuclear
understand gravity properly? That’s dark as to what they are. reactions inside the Sun.
Additional neutrinos may be
exactly what proponents of a theory
Q
created by dark matter
called Modified Newtonian Dynamics How much dark matter is annihilations and detecting
(MOND) advocate. there? them would be a big
Remember, one of the original
reasons dark matter was introduced
was to account for the fact that stars in
A Dark matter completely
dominates the ordinary matter
of which people, planets and stars are
breakthrough.
STANDARD MODEL
the Milky Way don’t slow down the made. Our Milky Way is thought to be
The recipe book that particle
further they are from the galactic about 90 per cent dark matter and only physicists use to explain a lot
centre, unlike the planets of our Solar 10 per cent ‘normal’ matter (baryonic of the subatomic world. It
System. But what if there is one rule matter). Of all of the matter in the contains rules regarding how
for gravity on small scales (such as a Universe, 85 per cent is dark matter particles interact with forces
solar system) and another for large and only 15 per cent is baryonic. and light.
scales (like a galaxy)? While Newton’s But, according to Einstein’s famous
laws of gravity allow us to send people equation E=mc2, mass and energy are SUPERSYMMETRY
to the Moon or spacecraft to the two sides of the same coin. This leads An idea that goes beyond the
planets, stretching those rules to cosmologists to often talk about the Standard Model and says
regions to where they don’t apply mass-energy of the Universe – all the every ‘normal’ particle has a
might explain why we’re puzzled by mass and all the energy put together. supersymmetric partner
the strange motions of stars. In these terms, the Universe is 68 per particle. The lightest of these
The idea was first put forward by cent dark energy, 27 per cent dark supersymmetric particles could
Israeli physicist Mordehai Milgrom in matter and just 5 per cent atoms. If we be responsible for dark matter.
1983. He suggested that the strength of discount the energy part, the numbers
gravity could become stronger where revert to above – 85 per cent dark
acceleration levels are small. These matter, 15 per cent baryonic matter.
ideas can help to explain some details
about how galaxies work in ways that by C O L I N S T UA R T (@skyponderer)
the dark matter theory cannot. But Colin is a science writer and author, and a Fellow
there is currently no reason to suspect of the Royal Astronomical Society.

THE EXISTENCE OF
BLACK HOLES
The idea of ‘dark stars’ that gobble up any planets in their path
dates back to the 18th century. But, as Brian Clegg explains, it
wasn’t until 1964 that hard evidence of their existence emerged
B
lack holes have escaped from by the varying time that light took to
astrophysics into the everyday reach us from the planet.
imagination. But there are gaps
in our knowledge of their nature and Light conversation
even, possibly, their existence. Ever since ancient times, there had
Black holes were born from theory, been arguments over whether light
not observation. We have known about travelled instantly or just extremely
conventional stars for as long as we’ve quickly. Rømer found evidence for a
been able to look at a clear night sky measurable speed, as the changing
but no-one ever saw a black hole. relative positions of Jupiter and Earth
Instead, they were predicted to exist in their orbits varied the time that
at a time when there was no way of light took to reach us. He calculated
checking whether there was any such the speed of light to be around
thing out there. And that prediction 220,000km/s. In the following 100
happened not once, but twice. years, this figure was measured
The first inspired thinking on the Ole Rømer calculated a speed for light, more accurately so that Michell was
matter was in the 18th century. The settling the dispute over whether it working with something closer to our
travelled instantly or just very quickly
man who dreamed up what he called current 300,000km/s. But the specific
‘dark stars’ was John Michell, a value didn’t matter – the point was
scientist who became a clergyman. It that light had a speed.
was from his rectory that he came up A typical bullet from the black Combining the two concepts of
with the concept, combining two key powder guns of Michell’s day could escape velocity and light having a
ideas of the latest science at the time. travel as fast as 300 metres per second. finite speed, Michell wondered what
One was escape velocity. Michell But despite this impressive velocity, would happen if a massive star had an
knew that when a bullet is shot the forces acting to slow it brought the escape velocity that was above the
straight up into the air, it has just two bullet back down to Earth. Michell, speed of light. The more mass in a
forces acting on it once it leaves the though, knew that a bullet travelling body, the higher its escape velocity.
gun: air resistance and gravity. As about 37 times faster would be able to Therefore, in principle, there could
it gets higher, both of these forces overcome the Earth’s attraction and fly be a star so vast that even light would
weaken. The air gets thinner and, off into space – it would have achieved not escape from it. Such a ‘dark star’
as Newton had made clear, gravity’s escape velocity. He combined this idea would have to be immense. Even
attraction drops off with the square of with a discovery from the 1670s, when though the escape velocity from the
ALAMY, GETTY
the distance between the centres of the Danish astronomer Ole Rømer realised surface of the Sun, for instance, is over
bodies involved – in this case, the that an apparent variation in the 600km/s, it is still far lower than the
bullet and the Earth. timing of Jupiter’s moons was caused speed of light. Michell’s theory was 5

Computer rendering of a
supermassive black hole. Jets
of matter are emitted at right
angles to the accretion disc
IN A
NUTSHELL
Studying black holes is particularly
difficult as they cannot be seen
directly. The work of eminent scientists
like Albert Einstein, Kip Thorne and
Stephen Hawking has helped
increase our understanding, but
many gaps in our knowledge
still remain to this day.
“When matter is dragged into a spinning

hole, it should produce a glowing ‘accretion
disc’ and distinctive ‘jets’ from the poles”
5 based on an incorrect assumption German army. Somehow, perhaps crammed into a sphere of a size now
– that light was made up of normal as a distraction from the devastation called the Schwarzschild radius, the
particles that could be slowed down around him, he found time to think distortion in space-time would be so
like any other projectile by gravity. about Einstein’s elegant equations great that light from the object would
But the idea of these mysterious ‘dark and his brand-new theory of General never escape. Anything closer than a
stars’ faded into history. Relativity. Einstein’s equations are sphere around the body of that radius
Fast-forward to the 20th century too complex to provide a universal would travel through a surface of no
and Karl Schwarzschild revived the solution, but Schwarzschild solved return – the black hole’s event horizon.
theories in the heat and horror of them for the special case of a spherical The most obvious source of such a
World War One. It was 1915 and the body that was not spinning. body would be a collapsing star. In
41-year-old German physicist had It emerged from the mathematics normal operation, a star’s nuclear
volunteered to join up with the that, if all the mass of that body was reactions fluff it up against the pull of
THE KEY EXPERIMENT

Black holes are tricky to study as even the closest one lies many light-years away,
but scientists can identify candidates by observing their X-ray emissions
Performing experiments on black holes
is a non-starter, as the nearest candidate
so far detected is around 3,000 light-
years away.
Official confirmation of Cygnus X-1,
the first significant candidate found,
took a number of years as no single
observation was capable of establishing
such a remarkable find.
In 1964, a rocket launched from the
White Sands Range in New Mexico
discovered a strong X-ray source in the
constellation of Cygnus. Also in 1964, two
sub-orbital rockets mapped out X-ray
sources, pinning down the location of
Cygnus X-1. In 1971, observations by the
Uhuru X-ray satellite telescope showed
that the Cygnus X-1 source underwent
rapid oscillations, suggesting it was a
compact object that was smaller than
the Sun. That same year, radio telescope
observations linked the X-ray source to
the star HDE226868. This blue supergiant
would not itself produce X-ray emissions,
implying that it had a companion. Also in
1971, astronomers at the Royal Greenwich
Observatory and Toronto’s David Dunlap
Observatory made further observations
of HDE226868. They confirmed that it was
in a binary with a massive but compact
object. And, in 1972, Charles Bolton at
Cygnus X-1 (location outlined in red). In
Toronto was the first to state definitively
NASA/CHANDRA
this image, the blue supergiant companion

that this object was a black hole. This star can be clearly seen to its right
view was generally accepted by 1973.

THE EXISTENCE OF BLACK HOLES
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Five giants of physics who made invaluable
contributions to our understanding of black holes
gravity. But once those reactions start JOHN MICHELL
to fade, matter in the star can collapse. (1724-1793)
The expectation is that this collapse Michell was born in
would be halted by a quantum effect Nottinghamshire and
called the Pauli exclusion principle, spent his academic
forming an intensely dense neutron life in Cambridge
star. If the star were massive enough, working on geology,
though, exceeding about three times gravity, magnetism
the mass of the Sun, the exclusion and astronomy. After KARL
his marriage in 1764, SCHWARZSCHILD
principle should be overcome and the
he spent the rest of (1873-1916)
collapse would be unstoppable. In
his life as a clergyman, Schwarzschild was a
principle, the material in the black
most notably at German physicist and
hole would continue to collapse all astronomer who was
Thornhill in Yorkshire.
the way to a dimensionless point – a Here he continued born in Frankfurt. He
‘singularity’ with infinite density and with his scientific worked as a professor
a force of gravity that headed off to work from 1767 until for several years in
infinity as it was approached. In his death in 1793. Göttingen, before
reality, we don’t know what would moving on in 1909 to
actually happen, because the become director of the
singularity is an admission that our town’s observatory.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
physics has broken down. For a good He subsequently
(1879-1955)
time after Schwarzschild, black holes headed up the
German-born Einstein
were purely theoretical. Potsdam Astrophysical
is best known for his
Or at least collapsed stars were, as Observatory. He
theories of Special
they were yet to receive their more volunteered for the
Relativity and General
intriguing moniker. German army in 1914
Relativity, laying
and died of a skin
the foundations of
Down the hole disease in 1916.
quantum theory. Via
The term ‘Black hole’ is often ascribed Belgium and the UK,
to the American physicist John he moved to the US
Wheeler, but its origins are shrouded in 1933 to escape Nazi
in mystery. The term was first reported Germany and took
at an American Association for the up a position at the
Advancement of Science meeting in Institute of Advanced KIP THORNE
January 1964. It’s not certain who used Study in Princeton. (1940-) Thorne
it, but Wheeler soon popularised it. It is an American
might seem that searching for black astrophysicist whose
holes would be a waste of time. How studies of General
do you see something that doesn’t give Relativity have
off light? But, as the physics of black STEPHEN HAWKING resulted in a wide
holes developed, scientists realised (1942-2018) range of predictions
that indirect routes were available. Cambridge-based on black holes,
As astronomers can’t see the hole Hawking is among wormholes and
itself, they need to look for its side the most famous time travel. Thorne
effects. When matter is dragged into physicists thanks to was consultant to
his bestselling book the best cinematic
a spinning hole, it should produce an
A Brief History of representation of a
‘accretion disc’, glowing brightly as a
Time and for defying black hole to date, the
result of friction produced by the
the onset of motor 2014 film Interstellar.
spinning matter – and would also
generate distinctive ‘jets’ from the neurone disease to
continue working
poles. Then there are the gravitational
into his 70s. His work
effects. We might see nearby bodies
has largely involved
ALAMY X2, GETTY X3
influenced by the black hole. This is

the General Theory
a venerable technique and was used of Relativity and
in the past to infer the existence of cosmology.
Neptune. Astronomers studied the
way the orbits of the other planets 5

On 10 April 2019, astronomers using

the Event Horizon Telescope
unveiled the first image of the
silhouette of a black hole, spotted
at the centre of the galaxy M87
5 were influenced by Neptune’s

gravitational pull.
Finally, there is ‘Hawking radiation’.
Stephen Hawking surprised himself
when, in 1974, he realised that black
holes couldn’t truly be black. The
idea came from his understanding
of quantum physics – the science
governing very small things – and in
particular the ‘uncertainty principle’.
This said that localised energy can
fluctuate significantly over small
periods of time, allowing pairs of
quantum particles to emerge and
then disappear again before they are
observed. If this happens near a black
hole’s event horizon, one of these
‘virtual’ particles could be pulled in
while the other flies off. These stray
particles make up Hawking radiation.
This is unlikely to be detectable at any
great distance. through to millions of times the mass there is no known mechanism for this
After Schwarzschild’s solution, of the Sun. There are broadly four to occur. Quantum black holes are
black holes seemed the natural end for categories, two of which have probably even smaller, from a scale of around
the right kind of stars with masses at been detected. 5,000 protons up. In principle, they
least three times that of the Sun. But At the tiny, totally hypothetical end could be produced in a particle
this particular scale is not a limitation of the scale are micro black holes and accelerator and would almost
of the black hole itself, merely the quantum black holes. A micro black immediately decay. Current
formation mechanism. In principle, hole would form, for instance, if Earth accelerators don’t have the energy
black holes could exist on any scale collapsed, forming an event horizon to produce one unaided, but if the
from the microscopic all the way about 9mm across, though thankfully Universe has extra dimensions, this
TIMELINE 1971
The first candidate black
1915 hole is found. Cygnus X-1
is an X-ray source that was
Albert Einstein first detected in 1964 and is
publishes his field thought to be a binary star,
equations. This set where material from one
of 10 equations at star is accelerated into a
the heart of General black hole.
Relativity describe
gravity as a curvature
of space and time.
1916
1783 Karl Schwarzschild comes
up with his theory, the 1995
John Michell’s ‘dark stars’ Schwarzschild radius, Star S2 (Source 2) is
paper is read at the Royal which states that if all a observed by the Max
Society. He hoped to deduce body’s mass is crammed Planck Institute and UCLA.
the mass of stars from their into a sphere, space-time It orbits an apparent
effect on light and thought a distortion would be so great supermassive black hole,
massive-enough star would that light from the object Sagittarius A*, at the heart
be able to stop light entirely. would never escape. of the Milky Way.

THE EXISTENCE OF BLACK HOLES
NEED TO KNOW
could reduce the energy threshold to sure of the mass of its ‘compact object’
something accessible. companion. Many other candidates
The best evidence we have for have been detected since, but evidence
A handy list of the
conventional black holes, formed from remains indirect and is based on terminology
the collapse of a dying star, is X-ray theoretical assumptions about the connected to the
binaries. In these objects, material is maximum size of a neutron star that study of black holes
accelerated from one normal star into may not be borne out in practice.
an invisible star, giving off X-rays. Supermassive black holes are ACCRETION DISC
This can happen with a neutron star, thought to exist at the heart of most
Rotating matter is pulled into a
but if the ‘eating’ star has more than galaxies. Such black holes may play
disc shape by a star (part of the
about three times the mass of the Sun, a significant role in galaxy formation, formation process of a solar
it should, in theory, be a black hole. giving the galaxy a hub around which system). In the case of black
The first X-ray binary widely to coalesce. Candidate Supermassive holes, nearby matter is
recognised as containing a black hole black holes have been detected at accelerated intensely by
was Cygnus X-1. A powerful X-ray many galactic centres, thanks to gravity, giving off a bright glow.
source was detected in 1964 and was the odd motion of nearby stars and
identified as a black hole candidate the high electromagnetic emissions JET
in 1971. A blue supergiant star in the from these regions. Streams of matter accelerated
binary was being stripped of material A star called S2 orbits the centre of to nearly the speed of light are
ESO/EHT COLLABORATION, GETTY X2, NASA X3, ESO
by the X-ray source, which appeared the Milky Way at about four times the emitted at right angles to the
to have a mass in the region of 9 to 15 radius of the orbit of Neptune. From accretion disc. The cause of
times that of the Sun. In 1975, Kip S2’s path, it seems likely it’s orbiting these jets is uncertain, though
Thorne and Stephen Hawking made something with a mass of about 4.3 they may be the result of a
a bet as to whether this was, indeed, million times that of the Sun. The complex magnetic field.
a black hole. Hawking, who was on the object matches the position of an
‘no’ side, paid up in 1990 when better intense radio source called Sagittarius PAULI EXCLUSION
observational data was obtained. A* and there is currently no other PRINCIPLE
Since 1990, the identification of explanation for this except a This principle of quantum
Cygnus X-1 has become less certain. supermassive black hole. Elsewhere, mechanics establishes that two
This is because the companion star stellar destruction gives a clue. fermions (a type of subatomic
is very large, making it difficult to be Unusually bright light signatures particle) cannot be in an
in distant galaxies are thought to be identical quantum state. This
stars being ripped apart by results in ‘exchange
interaction’, which is like a
supermassive black holes.
short-range force keeping
All is not certain, though. A 2014
fermions apart – except in
study suggested that black holes won’t
2012 form at all. The authors believed that
extreme conditions such as
black hole formation.
The best evidence to date of a star being ripped as a star collapses, Hawking radiation
apart by a supermassive black hole is detected by
the Pan-STARRS telescope on Hawaii and analysed
would reduce the mass of the star SINGULARITY
by a team at Johns Hopkins University. sufficiently that the black hole never
In the case of astrophysics, a
reaches completion. There would be singularity is a mathematically
an ultra-dense body acting like a black predicted condition where
hole, but without the singularity or space-time becomes so locally
the event horizon. The paper isn’t distorted by gravitation that
universally accepted, but illustrates the force of gravity tends to
how our understanding of black holes infinity and current theories
is primarily driven by theory. A theory of physics break down.
that was given a significant boost in
April 2019 when the first image of the
shadow of a black hole was captured
by an international team of scientists
using the Event Horizon Telescope.
by B R I A N C L E G G (@brianclegg)
Brian is a science writer and author. His latest
book is Professor Maxwell’s Duplicitous Demon.

THE END OF
THE UNIVERSE
We know the Universe started with the Big Bang, but how will it end?
With another bang? Or a will it be a rip, a crunch, a freeze or a bounce
instead? Brian Clegg gazes into a cosmological crystal ball
Q Will the Universe end soon?

in the Universe, from planets and
galaxies to fundamental particles and
begins to contract, but in this instance,
it never gets as far as a singularity
A No need to panic. It won’t end

for many billions of years.
Depending on the scenario, we have
space-time itself, is pulled apart as the
expansion heads off to infinity.
By contrast, the other two scenarios
before bouncing and expanding again.
The difference from the Big Crunch
is that some aspects of the earlier
between 20 billion and 100 billion see the expansion of the Universe Universe can carry over into the next
billion years left to enjoy our cosmos. eventually reversing. If everything one. In effect, the Big Crunch generates
The idea that the Universe can’t last ends in the Big Crunch, we see a a new Universe, whereas the Big
forever is based on the second law of reversal of everything we’ve Bounce sees the same Universe
thermodynamics, which states that experienced to date, returning to an repeatedly expand and contract.
systems have a tendency to degenerate infinitely dense point – a ‘singularity’.
when left to their own devices. This can then produce a new Big
Bang and a new Universe, giving a Q What does it depend on?
Q How might the Universe end? possibility for a cycle of universes.
In the subtly different Big Bounce, the A All these possibilities are
devised by taking the observed
A This is where we enter the realm

of cosmological speculation.
There are four broad scenarios that
Universe again reaches a peak size and behaviour of the Universe and then 5
have the most support.

Two of these scenarios involve
the Universe continuing to expand,
getting increasingly thinner and more
dispersed. The most conventional
scenario, the Big Freeze, is simply
the ultimate outcome of standard
thermodynamics. Everything evens
out until there is absolutely nothing
happening in a totally diffuse
Universe. The more dramatic version
incorporates the observation that the

Universe is not just expanding, but
that the expansion is accelerating.
If this accelerating expansion is
The Big Bounce is a scenario in which the Universe will contract,
extrapolated to the extreme, we get before bouncing and expanding again to form the same Universe
the Big Rip, in which all of the matter

IN A
NUTSHELL
While cosmologists agree that the
Universe will end in billions of years’
time, what they’re undecided on is how
it will happen. Currently, there are
four scenarios that have the most
support: the Big Rip (visualised
here), the Big Bounce, the
Big Freeze and the
Big Crunch.
“Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity

can be used to model the entire
Universe in a crude fashion”
5 extrapolating some key aspects of have in the past. Perhaps most best supported version of the Big
physics into the future, notably the doubtful is the use of General Bounce depends on something called
General Theory of Relativity. This Relativity, as it doesn’t work at the ‘ekpyrotic theory’, a concept based on
theory, Einstein’s masterpiece level of quantum particles, and using an unproven advanced version of
describing the relationship between it to model the Universe requires vast string theory. According to this
matter, gravity, space and time, can simplifications, making the model picture, our Universe is a four-
be used to model the entire Universe significantly different from reality. dimensional ‘brane’ (three of space,
in a crude fashion. Of all of the factors one of time), floating in a space-time
involved in predicting the future of
the Universe, the existence of the Q Which theory is the most
popular among cosmologists?
continuum and the Big Bounce
occurs when two such branes collide,
accelerating expansion is the most
reliable. The ‘extrapolation into the
future’ part is trickier. We can’t
A It depends who you ask! The
problem with theories like the
Big Crunch and the Big Bounce is that
providing that external input.
Variants of the Big Freeze, or ‘heat
death’, in which everything runs out
experiment with a Universe and try models of the Universe suggest that of energy and stars finally stop
out different scenarios. There’s such processes would run out of forming in around 100 billion billion
nothing to say that things will steam, unable to keep recycling unless years, were most popular among
continue in the future the way they there was some external input. The cosmologists for a long time. Now,
though, the Big Rip is probably the
best supported theory, because ‘dark
energy’ seems to be driven by the size
HOW WILL THE UNIVERSE END? of the Universe, so the bigger it gets,
the more powerful the effect.
The four most popular scenarios
Q What is dark energy?
BIG BOUNCE
As the shrinking Universe
BIG FREEZE
The Universe cools and
A No one knows exactly what
dark energy is, but it causes the
acceleration of the expansion of the
approaches the singularity, runs out of energy as it Universe. Without dark energy,
quantum effects cause the expands. Matter particles General Relativity models predict
subatomic particles that drift aimlessly through
different final outcomes. It might be a
permeate the cosmos to space and star formation
fundamental property of empty space,
repel each other. The ceases, plunging the
collapse reverses and the cosmos into a or it might be a new kind of energy
same Universe begins to frigid darkness. field or fundamental force, filling all
expand again. of space but having the opposite
effects to normal energy and matter.
Finally, it might be that Einstein’s
theory of gravity is incorrect, and that
a new theory is needed. The person
who solves this mystery will be an
instant Nobel Prize winner.
Q Will another universe be

UNIVERSE TODAY
born after this one dies?
A If either the Big Crunch or Big

Bounce happens, definitely. But
even the more likely ever-expanding
BIG RIP COSMIC BIG CRUNCH options don’t mean the end of
EXPANSION
With an ever-accelerating The expansion reverses and everything. Most cosmologists believe
expansion, everything in the the Universe shrinks down that this Universe is one of many in a
Universe (including fundamental to an infinitely dense point larger ‘multiverse’, with Big Bangs
BIG BANG
particles) rip themselves apart, – a singularity – where all happening regularly.

giving off vast amounts of light. physics as we know it
In the extreme, space-time breaks down, triggering a
itself disintegrates. new Big Bang. by B R I A N C L E G G (@brianclegg)
Brian is a science writer and author. His latest
book is Professor Maxwell’s Duplicitous Demon.

Take a tour of the most incredible phenomena

in the Universe, from the Big Bang to the
Big Bounce – and everything in between.
Written by experts, this Special Edition clearly explains the

fundamental ideas in science from general relativity to
quantum physics. It reveals how we came to comprehend
black holes, determine the speed of light and discover
the structure of DNA. It discusses the biggest genetic
breakthroughs from GM babies to the creation of synthetic
life. And it tells the story of the hunt for the greatest
enigma in the cosmos: dark matter.
FROM THE MAKERS OF BBC SCIENCE FOCUS MAGAZINE

BBC Science Focus - The Theory of Nearly Everything

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FROM THE MAKERS OF BBC SCIENCE FOCUS MAGAZINE

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NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave

used to help determine the age

BBC SCIENCE FOCUS MAGAZINE COLLECTION 3

08The story of the Universe from

THE FUNDAMENTALS THE FUNDAMENTALS THE NEXT BIG STEPS

4 BBC SCIENCE FOCUS MAGAZINE COLLECTION

56 The scientists who discovered

the theory of evolution

The hunt to find the

The compact muon solenoid

the least of a cosmologist’s worries. in the laboratory,” says Dr Anupam

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The Big Bang saw the Universe

THE FUNDAMENTALS OF PHYSICS

The fundamental elements of the

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THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSE

The Horn Antenna at Crawford Hill in New

BBC SCIENCE FOCUS MAGAZINE COLLECTION 11

THE FUNDAMENTALS OF PHYSICS

2001 the microwave sections of the THE SOLAR SYSTEM

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THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSE

The cosmic terms

BBC SCIENCE FOCUS MAGAZINE COLLECTION 13

THE FUNDAMENTALS OF PHYSICS

Left to right: the Sun,

“When comets crashed into the surface of the

14 BBC SCIENCE FOCUS MAGAZINE COLLECTION

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of the 19th century. Eventually, he when different substances were put

16 BBC SCIENCE FOCUS MAGAZINE COLLECTION

The Pleiades star cluster, also known

BBC SCIENCE FOCUS MAGAZINE COLLECTION 17

THE FUNDAMENTALS OF PHYSICS

Copper being burnt

5 spectroscopy, they found that each produced by the presence of strontium

THE KEY EXPERIMENT

18 BBC SCIENCE FOCUS MAGAZINE COLLECTION

THE COMPOSITION OF STARS

WHAT WE STILL DON’T

helium was the British astronomer 5

BBC SCIENCE FOCUS MAGAZINE COLLECTION 19

THE FUNDAMENTALS OF PHYSICS

20 BBC SCIENCE FOCUS MAGAZINE COLLECTION

THE COMPOSITION OF STARS

of mind was aided by the independent be measured using spectroscopy.

BBC SCIENCE FOCUS MAGAZINE COLLECTION 21

experiment wherein the flash astronomer Ole Rømer joined Cassini

22 BBC SCIENCE FOCUS MAGAZINE COLLECTION

THE FUNDAMENTALS OF PHYSICS

you as you walk forwards – you have

Back down to Earth

vertically when you’re at rest appears fields. In any electromagnetic wave,

24 BBC SCIENCE FOCUS MAGAZINE COLLECTION

MEASURING THE SPEED OF LIGHT

“In 1690, Dutch mathematician Christiaan Huygens

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Q Wave, particle or both? RJ[UKEU+PVJGYQTNFQHENCUUKECN