Miller-Urrey Experiment , 1953

What is the origin of life ? How did life flourish in the earth ? These are two main questions remained unsolved even with our current improvement in the technology.

Today Lets take a look to the experiment that considered revolutionary in 1953 made by biochemists Stanley Miller and Harold Urrey.

What is this Experiment About ?

In order to understand the purpose of experiment better I want to give brief information about Abiogenesis theory. Abiogenesis is the idea of life originating from non living materials. Eventhough lots of the abiogenesis theories are unsupportable this one was got quite good popularity in scientific area in 1950's. Obviously the main purpose in this experiment is to test the legitimacy of the abiogenesis theory.

The Execution of the Experiment

Well if I have to explain this in most simplistic way. Stanley Miller and Harold Urrey wanted to create block stone of life which is aminoacids. They planned to create aminoacids by using Water (H2O) , Methane (CH4) , Ammonia (NH3) , Hydrogen (H2) and Carbon Monoxide (CO). According to their thinking style if some natural elements like lightning they can get aminoacids which is essential to create living organisms. However in these experiments insteada of going lightning hunting they used electrods instead of lightnings

The Result of the Experiment [ Drum Sounds ]

When you apply some sparkles with the help of electrods , they produced aminoacids. Aminoacids mean Protein and protein means living organism. According to results of the experiment life might be flourished from random natural events.

However counter arguments say that in the past the compounds of the atmosphere was completely different. In the primitive atmospher instead of Methane and Ammonia there was Carbon Dioxide and Nitrogen. If we consider this as a fact the forming change of aminoacids wasn't possible.

Also even aminoacids formed somehow. It is highly possible that the insane amount of Oxygen in the Primitive atmospher was going to destroy aminoacids.

I don't think we have much information about components of atmosphere in primitive eras and I think it is highly possible that the components of nature can possibly give oppurtonity to this phenemenon and If not this experiment is a still decent proof to the abiogenesis theory.

Sources

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Image : 1 , 2 , 3.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller%E2%80%93Urey_experiment

Thanks For Reading & Hasta La Vista !