Media Credit: Christin Palazzolo [Click to enlarge]

As a part of the Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Series, University of Arizona Distinguished Professor Chris Impey spoke Tuesday night in a lecture titled "Cosmic Evolution: From Big Bang to Biology."

"I was told you should never have a setup guy who's more famous and funnier than you are, but I'm going to do it anyway," said Impey as he played a clip from "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" parodying the history of the theory of evolution.

The clip was the first in a series of pop culture references that Impey used to segue between facts and theories.

When he introduced the complicated and expansive subject of the size of the universe, he played a narrated tour through the stars, explaining that "a universe narrated by Morgan Freeman is a little more reassuring."

At the onset of his lecture, Impey said he was disappointed that the science of evolution is "no longer always a safe science to teach."

He supports the Big Bang theory, also known as the "day without a yesterday", which scientists have theorized to have happened 13.7 million years ago. Impey explained that the universe, now large, empty and cold, was once hotter, smaller and denser. When the Big Bang occurred, the universe expanded at a speed even faster than the speed of light.

Even now, he said, "Regions that have never been visible to us are gradually coming into view."

The largeness of the universe and the fact that a quarter of it is made up of helium was at first perplexing for scientists; if humans are mostly made up of carbon, nitrogen and oxygen, how was our creation possible in such a helium-filled universe?

The answer, Impey said, lies in the stars.

Most people think the main function of stars is to produce light, but in reality only 1 percent of stars produce light as a result of the "leaking" of certain elements. More importantly, stars eject the elements that make humans - carbon, nitrogen and oxygen - making life possible in the universe. As time goes on and more stars die, more of these elements will be in the universe making greater the possibility for new life to arise, he said. This constant increase supports the theory of evolution, Impey said, and gives us an explanation as to why it took us millions of years to evolve into the Homosapien species.

Continued...

Page 1 of 2 next >

Article Tools

Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1

Post a Comment

• Name: (required)
• Email: (required)
• NOTE: Email address will not be published
• Website:

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail

Email notify will not work because you are not currently logged in.
Click here to quickly login or create a free account.

Type your comment below (html not allowed)

  I am not posting spam. I understand posting spam or other comments that are unrelated to this article will cause my comment to be flagged for deletion and possibly cause my IP address to be permanently banned from this server.