Molecules in the young Earth's oceans underwent a finite number C of collisions during the time interval which elapsed between Earth's formation and the emergence of life. The finiteness of C sets an upper limit G on the number of constituent molecules which could have been randomly assembled into a genetic molecule from a reservoir of the relevant constituent molecules for use in the first cell. A viable cell requires a certain minimum number of genes in order to be functional: this means that the genetic material must include a minimum number M of the constituent molecules which encode for information. The question we address here is: is it mathematically possible for G to take on values which are at least as large as M? The answer is Yes, provided that we allow for the fact that there is a large amount of flexibility ("non-specificity") in the operation of biological molecules. When this flexibility is allowed for, we find that G can be comparable to M provided that the mass of constituent molecules which were available in the pre-biotic Earth exceeded a certain threshold. Our estimates indicate that a mass on the order of a few tons would satisfy the threshold.

Date Published: 23 September 2011
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 8152, Instruments, Methods, and Missions for Astrobiology XIV, 815214 (23 September 2011); doi: 10.1117/12.899351

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8152:
Instruments, Methods, and Missions for Astrobiology XIV
Richard B. Hoover; Paul C. W. Davies; Gilbert V. Levin; Alexei Yu. Rozanov, Editor(s)