Blockchain Papers

Primavera De Filippi, Andrea M. Leiter

Blockchain technology has spurred the emergence of powerful narratives to promote new ways of governing outer space. The list of proposed uses for blockchain applications in outer space is endless—from property registries for asteroid mining, to supply chain management systems, or interplanetary cryptocurrencies for the space economy—along with Elon Musk claiming that “SpaceX is going to put a literal Dogecoin on the literal moon.” Yet, thus far, none of these projects have gone beyond simple declarations or white papers, mostly due to the inherent limitations on the effective enforcement of blockchain-based rules outside of their own technical framework. In this essay, we argue that blockchain technology is relevant for outer space because it fosters novel narratives advancing possible futures characterized by new modes of governance. The strongest and most prominent of these narratives is the crypto-libertarian one, which draws heavily on the absence of a state, the sanctity of property, and the primacy of private ordering through decentralized markets. But there are other narratives proposed by relevant actors in the blockchain space that are dedicated to other modes of governance. By focusing on alternative narratives for blockchain technology, we illustrate how the possible applications of blockchain technology in outer space may extend beyond the current libertarian dreams, to support a more commons-based approach to outer space governance.

Kelsie Nabben

No abstract is available for this record.

Abed Peerally

Summary The topics of Dark Matter and Dark Energy and of the Higgs phenomenon, are amongst the dramatic examples of the universe being to a large extent unknown. Reported in the late 1990’s by S. Perlmutter, B. Schmidt and A. Riess, the Nobel Committee in awarding the Nobel Prize to them in 2011 said: Their “findings have unveiled a universe that is to a large extent unknown to science”. That is still true today and is likely to be so for decades to come. These findings were based on the behaviour of the Type 1a Supernovae which, due to their consistent brightness, have developed the reputation of being reliable standard candles in cosmological research. Perlmutter, Schmidt and Riess found that these supernovae, as earlier workers for decades had observed, are dimmer than what expected, and they concluded that they must be accelerating faster than believed, in their motion. The work of Riess et al proposed that dark energy, must be a kind of energy that could have an anti-gravitational pull, thus explaining the strange behaviour of the Type 1a supernovae as they move away from us, into the infinite horizon of the universe. Now in the late second decade of the 21st century, no dark energy reality has been discovered at all, and the same applies to the dark matter hypothesis that came out of the work that was awarded the Nobel Prize 2011. It appears like there will perhaps never be any proof of the existence of dark matter and dark energy particles, for these are claimed to be unable to interact with normal matter and energy and not to have any radiation. This is a typical example of why perhaps a Theory of Everything is required to throw some light on the mysterious realities of existence, if possible. Actually explaining something that has no material or energy evidence of any kind, makes that something as impossible to explain as God. They do not interact with anything at all. However, if the Theory of Everything can explain how the universe originated, it might surely also provide evidence of whether dark matter and dark energy exist or not. This appears very tricky for they have been claimed as being totally invisible and insensitive to any kind of experimental set up. 2 The Higgs boson came out dramatically in the work of Higgs, Salam, Weinberg, Glashow and others, that found linkages between the weak force and the electromagnetic force. It is believed in relation to the Higgs boson, even if it is not true, that all particles should have zero mass. Several different eminent physicists thought of rather similar ways of explaining mass and its origin. Generally, it was felt that a new Field that was later called the Higgs Field, permeated the universe, and the property of mass was acquired when particles interacted with this field whose particle was named the Higgs boson, the simplest manifestation of the field. However many physicists believe the Higgs phenomenon and its particle discovered in 2012 should be a more elaborate mechanism, on which further work is ongoing, particularly at the LHC. The feeling is that the phenomenon of mass has not understood in its full reality. It goes without saying that in the absence of a Theory of Everything, it is not possible to really know, as far as possible, the nature and fate of the universe, mainly because the universe was conceived on a deliberate master plan. The implication is that there could have existed only one such specific plan: the supernatural plan to create our universe, which to humans is the Theory of Everything as far as possible, capable to describe our universe. The fact humans are destined to discover the Theory of Everything, according to Kepler and Whewell, indicates there was supernatural creation of the universe, and therefore finding the Theory of Everything is an astounding perspective. The scientific/philosophical Theory of Everything will be describes soon, is coming at a historical juncture where several well-known cosmologists are talking about natural creation from practically nothing or based solely on mathematics. Since most intellectuals and members of the public believe the universe had a supernatural creation, a scientific concept of the origin of the universe by a Supernatural Mind or God, would be of enormous interest. It will be the collision of the traditional imaginary Godless concepts of the origin of our universe with a scientific concept that creates an extraordinary historical event in our current intellectual, scientific, philosophical and theological world. Since the Theory of Everything will be really, as far as possible, a universal and metaphysical concept of the universe, it can produce an intellectual revolution in the scientific and philosophical sectors, that will impact on theology in ways not seen before. There whole world will benefit, for the total 3 confusion that surrounds the comprehension of the realities and origin of our universe would reach a turning point, never seen before. It will demonstrate the power of intellectual knowledge as the torch bearer of humanity. The reason is that intellectual ideas are capable to turn humanity into one collective mind in the universe. The universe under GRT is expanding, and there was never been any tendency for the universe to contract and collapse into an unimaginable black hole. Penrose’s hypothesis of a cosmic crunch and the rebirth of the universe (CCC), is not a possibility, because the uncertainly in science is at the quantum microscale, and not at the macro or universal scale. Gravity was correctly explained by Einstein. He referred to it as pseudo-force, causing the warping of space time, being perhaps a kind of variation of the electromagnetic force. The truth is that the nature of black holes happens to be as misunderstood as is the nature of the universe. Cosmology has been a precariously understood domain, the reason being the lack of adequate cosmological understanding of how the universe came into existence. This is not surprising, as I explain in my coming second book on the origin of the universe, for our world is, historically, at the beginning phase of its modern scientific era, being hardly one century old, if we take the golden age of physics of the first decades of the last century, as marking the beginning of our modern scientific culture. No wonder we do not know the real nature of forces, particles, space, time, atoms, matter, gravitation, expansion of the universe, dark energy, dark matter, and the origin and fate of the universe, topics addressed in my second book due in late 2018. Our extraordinary universe must have been inspired by a scientifically precise and elaborate design. Gravity remains one of the greatest mysteries of science for it has no quantum particulate physical identity, its imagined particle, the graviton cannot exist, and up to now gravity can only be calculated and described, for instance in the equations of Newton and Einstein. It exists because it arises due to totally natural reasons, which were largely seen in Descartes’ belief there must exist a law of the universal conservation of the quantity of motion. The quantum nature of spacetime, if it is not a particle, must have physical realities that are sensitive to acceleration, indicating that spacetime is perhaps fractal in its physical reality or at least mathematically, the reason why Einstein was very precise in his description of general and special relativity. String Theory, a great intellectual exercise, has the weakness of not explaining how exactly the strings acquire their 4 property of vibration. Any Theory of Everything must incontrovertibly explain the origin of motion and of gravitation. The physics of the universe are intimately fused with the philosophy of existence, not surprisingly, as the purpose of creation must have been for producing a conscious being, not solely the universe.

A. J. Penny

Part of the SETI Institute's 42-telescope Allen Telescope Array (ATA) in California. (SETI Institute) Part of the SETI Institute's 42-telescope Allen Telescope Array (ATA) in California. (SETI Institute) The first Search for Extra—Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project of the modern era was done by Frank Drake in the spring of 1960, using the Green Bank 26 m telescope. He was looking for narrow—band radio emission from two nearby stars, t Ceti and ε Eri, over a frequency range of 400 kHz near the H i line. Since then there have been six major and many minor searches, made both on specific targets and also over the entire sky. The searches have extended to the optical and infrared, and to search for artefacts in the solar system and beyond. There have also been more than a thousand papers in the scientific press. The searches have all come up negative. What does this mean? Can future searches extend in a significant way the present area of the “ETI phase space” that has been searched for the existence of extraterrestrial intelligences (ETIs)? This article will briefly describe some of the component parts of SETI and put forward the case that SETI does indeed have an exciting future. SETI has two main aims. There is the expanding exploration of that phase space, always with the possibility of “contact” and the leap forward in our understanding of life in the universe and in many other fields of science and culture that would result. But SETI also addresses the future of humankind, looking for other civilizations that have trodden this path before us. If we find them, then we will know there is a possible way forward. If a particular SETI search comes up with a negative result, then we know that our future may not include the path that that search would have revealed. SETI activity has other components. It involves studies of: how evolution leads from the origin of life to intelligence; the rise and nature of technological civilizations; the problems of communications with fundamentally different entities; the possibilities of interstellar travel. It provides a logical extension to the growing field of astrobiology. Like all high—tech work, it has spin—offs, such as the Berkeley BOINC system of grid computing, originally designed to deal with the flood of SETI data from the Arecibo telescope with the SETI@home project, and which is now used in many fields, including medicine, molecular biology and climatology. And SETI provides a powerful forum for engaging with the public on the nature of scientific studies, using a subject in which the public is already interested. We know very little for sure. We know from our own example that technological civilizations can arise and persist for thousands of years, and send both “leakage” and deliberate radio and optical signals of their existence out to the galaxy. We know that our civilization arose in the last 10% of the age of the Earth before the increase in the Sun's output will render the surface of the Earth uninhabitable. We know that no ETI has left evidence of its existence in any of the searches that have been made, on the Earth, in the solar system, or further afield. Our existence means that other civilizations could exist, but gives no indication of their probability. Our recent knowledge of extraterrestrial planets suggests that Earths hospitable to life are common. However, since we do not know how life started, we do not know if life is common, rare, or if the Earth is the single case. Within the next decades the study of the atmospheres of Earth—like planets may resolve this point. However, we next do not know the probability that once life has started whether it then evolves to a technological civilization. We cannot say that evolution is bound to produce intelligence, and we are unable to predict the nature of other technological civilizations, or how long such civilizations exist. Civilizations thousands, millions, or billions of years older than ours could be of a very different nature to our own. However, the late arrival of intelligence on Earth is most compatible with an average time for the arrival of intelligence being much longer than the lifetime of stars, and thus with us being alone. But this is only a probabilistic pointer, not a proof. The view shows the first LOFAR station to be built in the UK at STFC's Chilbolton Observatory, with the Low Band Array in the foreground. Unlike conventional radio telescopes, there are no moving parts, but steering of the telescope is done in software. When completed, LOFAR will consist of more than 5000 separate antennas spread in ‘stations’ all over Europe. The project is based in the Netherlands where the core of the array is located. (STFC/SEPnet) The view shows the first LOFAR station to be built in the UK at STFC's Chilbolton Observatory, with the Low Band Array in the foreground. Unlike conventional radio telescopes, there are no moving parts, but steering of the telescope is done in software. When completed, LOFAR will consist of more than 5000 separate antennas spread in ‘stations’ all over Europe. The project is based in the Netherlands where the core of the array is located. (STFC/SEPnet) The lack of evidence of ETI is known as the Fermi Paradox. Once a civilization gets to our stage, it would only be a short time before it could build Von Neuman probes — autonomous self—replicating space probes — whereby every planet in our galaxy could be visited within a few tens of millions of years. The simplest explanation for the fact that we do not see such probes here, and that none of our searches have found signs of ETI, is that we are alone. However, there is no lack of credible alternative explanations of how the existence and even widespread existence of ETI would be compatible with the negative search results. These searches have as yet only explored a very small fraction of ETI phase space. So although there is some indication that we are alone, all we can presently say is that it is possible that ETI is out there, but we cannot with any degree of certainty predict how often ETI arises, or what their natures or lifetimes would be. The most common way of looking for ETI is to look for narrow—band radio emission. Our civilization emits such radiation from the 1 Hz wide carrier beam of analogue TV stations through to the kilohertz wide emissions of such things as airport radars. ETI may also emit such leakage radiation, although present searches are only sensitive to much more powerful radiation than we presently emit. Narrow—band radio waves are also the cheapest and most efficient method of interstellar communication that we know of, and so may be ETIs' way of communication, and even of signalling their existence to us (“beacons”). The narrow—band signature can also be distinguished from natural sources, even rare natural narrow—band ones such as masers. The Harvard and Argentinian searches with 26 m telescopes covered the entire sky, and the Arecibo “piggy—back” survey covered some 25% of the sky. But these have integration times of only a minute or so. The SETI Institute among others has done many longer integrations on individual targets such as nearby stars. Searches have become more powerful as receivers, electronics and data handling and analysis software improve, as for example in the billion 1 Hz spectral resolution channels of the 42—telescope Allen Telescope Array (ATA). The most recent surveys are now a trillion times more capable than Drake's 1960 observations. Following the recent development of high—powered lasers, which in theory could be matched with telescopes to outshine the Sun in nanosecond pulses, searches have started to look for such ETI signals in the optical. Pointed observations at Berkeley and Lick and an all—sky survey at Harvard are now looking for such nanosecond pulses. Again these are distinguishable from natural sources. If an ETI were using one of our most powerful lasers and a 10 m telescope, these searches would pick them up from hundreds of light—years away. More exotic radiation sources, such as the neutrinos from supernova SN1987A, are also investigated for signs of an artificial nature. The most famous such search was in 1967 when the Cambridge pulsar discovery team checked that the pulses had no sign of orbital motion. Different searches have different aims, usually based on some sort of premise of the nature of ETIs. The most obvious choice is of nearby long—lived stars, where ETIs on planets have had time to evolve. Such searches range from Drake's observation of two such stars in 1960, to the million stars planned for ATA. Since stars can differ in ages by billions of years, and ETIs take an unknown time to emerge, a search of a million stars gives a chance of picking up an ETI radiating for a thousand years, which may be a reasonable estimate of the time until an ETI changes into a fundamentally different mode. Then there are the all—sky surveys and surveys of areas of the sky, such as the galactic centre, where no presumption is made of where ETI is — on or off planets, near or far. These necessarily have shorter integrations per pointing, so are sensitive to rarer but brighter sources. The extreme of this is surveys of other galaxies, looking for extremely bright sources, but sources so rare that there is not one in our own Milky Way. There are also specialized searches. A recent proposal is for a search on the ecliptic plane, where an ETI would have been aware for a long time, using the radial velocity and transit planet detection methods, that there is an Earth in orbit around the Sun. Perhaps this would prompt them to signal to us. Searches have also been done looking for artefacts of an ETI civilization. The most famous of these are Dyson spheres, where an ETI surrounds a star with solar panels, probably on many discrete mounts, to tap a significant fraction of the star's energy. The outsides of these panels will be cool, shining in the infrared. Each new infrared catalogue that comes out is scanned for objects of strange non—natural looking colours. There have been searches for strange colours in the asteroid belt objects which might indicate an artificial nature, and for objects in the unstable Earth—Moon L4 and L5 Lagrangian points. There are notoriously many “sightings” of UFOs, which all have either been explained or have not contained enough information to determine their natures. The most interesting ongoing scientific investigation is the Norwegian Hessdalen Valley Project where there have been repeated sightings. The main limit on these searches is funding. There are almost no public funds. Very little sustained work is done outside the US, and within the US the main work is done through private funding and the efforts of determined individuals at Berkeley and Harvard. The SETI Institute, which grew out of the NASA work of the 1970s and 80s, is privately funded and the Berkeley and Harvard projects are done from within radio astronomy and electronics groups with university funding and private support. Outside radio and optical searches there is almost no concerted academic work on the other areas of ETI phase space such as solar system searches or catalogue analysis. Theoretical work depends on the intermittent interest of individuals. There is a lack of resources to fund fresh blood. Over the past 50 years there have been hundreds of papers describing the capabilities of searches and suggesting new methods. There have been as many speculating about the existence, origins, lifetimes and natures of ETIs, about composing and decoding messages, the prospects for interstellar travel and many allied matters. There has been much cross—fertilization with other fields including biology, philosophy, spaceship propulsion, linguistics and planetary science. Is intelligence a convergent property, etc? Some pointers to this extensive body of literature are given in the “Further reading”. An important field for SETI is the evolution of intelligence. Once life is started, does it then always evolve to intelligence? Intelligence seems such a useful attribute that evolution would home in on it, but for two billion years bacteria reigned alone. Since then there have been millions of species on Earth, out of which only one, us, has evolved advanced technology. Were we inevitable? Is evolution convergent? And then there is the “Man from Mars” problem, as it is known in linguistic studies. Can there be ways of communication that are so fundamentally different from our own that the message may be incomprehensible? Concepts such as “signs” and “signifiers” may not be present. How would a communication system based on smells be coded into a radio message? A standing controversy is whether it is dangerous to send out signals. In fact any advanced ETI would probably know about us already from our various radio emissions of the past six decades, or from visible signs such as the existence of our cities over the past four thousand years. And because we do not know about the nature of any ETI, a signal might either provoke or forestall an attack by any ill—intentioned ETI. So there is no reason not to transmit. But in any case there is probably presently little point, as signalling for thousands of years would be needed to give the class of ETIs not much more advanced than us a reasonable chance to pick us up. (Only such ETIs would not necessarily know all about us already.) In studying the future of humankind, we already know that certain classes of ETI, those that our searches would have picked up, are not common. How much does that tell us about the long—term evolution of civilizations like our own? Will we become a civilization that SETI searches could detect? Will we survive the bottlenecks of the near future: global warming, nuclear war, biological terrorism, grey goo, a catastrophic meteorite strike, the rise of the machines? In the more distant future, will we establish self—sustaining colonies off the Earth that will lessen our vulnerability? In the very distant future, will we become a race that can persist for a million or a billion years? SETI provides an avenue, the only observational avenue presently available to us, for exploring these puzzling questions. An example of how SETI thinks about our own future is the “Great Filter”. Taking from the Fermi Paradox that advanced ETIs are not common, Hanson (1998) pointed out that in the progress from star formation to such ETIs there must be a limiting pinch point. If this is behind us, then we are one of the extremely rare cases to have got this far, and our future prospects are not limited. But if it is in front of us, then we will very probably be extinguished. Paradoxically, discovery of ETIs like us, but not too advanced, would be bad news, as then it must be easy to get as far as us, and the Great Filter must be in front, and quite close. If we detect an ETI, what would happen next? First of all, there is the getting out of the news, and present SETI searchers subscribe to the International Academy of Astronautics SETI Permanent Study Group's “Post—detection Protocol”, which basically says “be sure, have it confirmed, and then spread the news widely”. No signal should be sent back until international agreement has been reached. In practice, the experience of search groups is that, when investigating ambiguous signals, the news can leak out in an uncontrollable way. What happens next would depend on the origin and nature of the signal. A solar system detection would have its own possibilities and problems. The result of a radio or optical detection of a distant source would depend on its nature. A continuous narrow—band signal which simply says “I am artificial” would revolutionize the scientific field and trigger funds for a great search for more details. Does it show signs of orbital motion? Is it associated with a star? It would also trigger public and philosophical interest. It is generally thought that the public would be intensely interested, but would not overreact. However, if there were to be some sort of code seen in the signal, then as well as the scientifically fascinating cryptological and linguistic tasks of finding out what the message is, the public interest would be overwhelming. Coming from an advanced civilization, does the message tell us how to behave, explain about religions, contain a cure for cancer? Is there some sort of danger in the message? If we respond, how do we have a conversation that may involve time lags of centuries? Astronomers would be interacting with the community in ways that are difficult to envision. Given the negative results so far, is it worth going on? We do not know what ETIs are like, so we cannot say how large the phase space of possible ETIs is and thus we neither know if we are looking in the best way nor what our chances of success are. Many SETI searchers remain optimistic. The quotation from Cocconi and Morrison's 1959 foundational paper that “The probability of success is difficult to estimate; but if we never search, the chance of success is zero” has many supporters. However, without knowing the nature of ETIs we cannot estimate by how much we improve our chances by any particular SETI search. Within the next decade we should be able to rule out (or discover) leakage radiation similar to our own from nearby habitable Earths — but the chance of hitting the perhaps thousand—year window for such radiation for a planet millions or billions older or younger than us must be very small. The author's personal opinion is that although we cannot know what our chances are it would be a failure of nerve not to go on looking, as long as each new search does cover significant new phase space at a reasonably modest cost. Planned radio searches will get more powerful, from the privately funded ATA array partly dedicated to SETI searches, to the use of new telescopes such as the European LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR), for which the author is PI on a SETI Pilot Programme, and the South African 64—dish MeerKAT array, which has recently announced that it wishes to “explore further the potential for SETI”. And there is the giant Square Kilometre Array on which funding are to advanced receivers, electronics and software we are for giant forward. A major present is in the electronics and and so an in with and telescope that to and all—sky with in the other of searches, such as the optical new solar system searches of new and into the next decade is with possibilities to extend the ETI phase space we are by the almost lack of public funding. When to the public about SETI and tell them that almost none of their astronomy to SETI are that such an interesting field is being If the panels of the astronomy funding were to to fund SETI at a of one of one of their SETI would be and much more powerful and searches could be would be an thought for us all — that we were the search and in this into the unknown the race is looking

Andrew Lawler

NASA is reconsidering its support for an innovative experiment designed to capture direct evidence of elusive antimatter. At stake is an unusual 16-nation effort, led by a Nobel Prize winner, that until recently was cited by agency managers as proof that the space station can host high-quality science.

Brian K. Hall

The story of the discovery of the platypus (Figure 1) teaches us much that is relevant to the nature of scientific evidence, orthodoxy, entrenched authority, the role of personalities in science, the slow overthrow of old mores, national rivalries, prejudices and priorities, the strictures of animal classification, what it takes to be described as a mammal, conservation, and extinction. A rivalry that pitted nation against nation, naturalist against naturalist, and professional against amateur endured for 85 years before the true nature of the platypus was revealed. Long after the evidence was wrested from Nature half a world away from where the debate raged, professional biologists continued to argue about this paradoxical creature. How did such a situation arise? The platypus, Ornithorhynchus anatinus, whose combination of avian, reptilian, and mammalian features so puzzled nineteenth century naturalists and continues to fascinate people to this day. Modified from Augie (1992). Platypuses—duckbills, watermoles, or duckmoles, as the European settlers of New South Wales called them—are found only in Australian freshwater lakes and streams. David Collins, who arrived with the First Fleet as Deputy Judge-Advocate, provided an early description in the second edition of An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales: The Kangaroo, the Dog, the Opossum, the Flying Squirrel, the common Rat, and the large Fox-Bat (if entitled to a place in this society), made up the whole catalogue of animals that were known at this time, with the exception which must now be made of an amphibious animal, of the mole species, one of which has been lately found on the banks of a lake near the Hawkesbury. In size it was considerably larger than the land mole. The eyes were very small. The forelegs, which were shorter than the hind, were observed at the feet, to be provided with four claws, and a membrane, or web, that spread considerably beyond them, while the feet of the hind legs were furnished, not only with this membrane or web, but with four long and sharp claws, that projected as much beyond the web, as the web projected beyond the claws of the fore feet. The tail of this animal was thick, short, and very fat; but the most extraordinary circumstance observed in its structure was, its having instead of the mouth of an animal [mammal], the upper and lower mandibles of a duck. By these it was enabled to supply itself with food, like that bird, in muddy places, or on the banks of the lakes, in which its webbed feet enabled it to swim, while on shore its long and sharp claws were employed in burrowing; nature thus providing for it in its double or amphibious character. These little animals have been frequently noticed rising to the surface of the water, and blowing like the turtle. (Collins 1802, p. 62) Captain John Hunter, the second governor of the new colony, watched an Aborigine spear a platypus in Yarramundi Lagoon near the Hawkesbury River just north of Sydney in 1797. The Aborigine sat patiently at water's edge for more than an hour, observing the animal as it came to the surface to breathe, before he attempted to spear it with his short wooden spear. Hunter's fine drawing of this animal accompanied Collins's description of this “amphibious animal, of the mole species” (Figure 2). A keen naturalist and fellow of the Royal Society, Hunter supplied many animals and plants to naturalists in England. Many saw his sketch and read Collins' description before specimens became available. The incomparable English wood engraver, Thomas Bewick, published another early representation in 1800 in his justly renowned A General History of Quadrupeds (Bewick 1800; Figure 3). Governor John Hunter's drawing of the amphibious animal of the mole kind, which was drawn in 1797 and included as an engraving in the second edition of David Collins' An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales (Collins 1802). Thomas Bewick's engraving of the amphibious animal, the last plate in the fourth edition of A General History of Quadrupeds (Bewick 1805). The platypus was given its scientific name, Platypus anatinus (flat-foot duck), in 1799 by George Shaw, a parson turned Keeper of the Department of Natural History of the Modern Curiosities of the British Museum. His description of the platypus was based on a single skin and accompanying sketch sent by Hunter to the Literary and Philosophical Society in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1798. The skin of this original (type) specimen is still preserved in the British Museum. Shaw's description (Shaw 1799) was published in the tenth volume of an important natural history journal of the time, Naturalist's Miscellany—or, to give it its full, descriptive title: The Naturalist's Miscellany: or Coloured Figures of Natural Objects Drawn and Described Immediately from Nature— produced by Shaw and the illustrator Frederick P. Nodder as an outlet for all manner of discoveries from the natural world. Over 1000 different animals were illustrated in its pages between 1798 and 1882, including the kangaroo, black swan, and echidna from the Great South Land, now known as Australia. Shaw's description was remarkably accurate, based as it was on a dried skin with a desiccated and hardened “bill” so unlike the soft, flexible bill of the living animal. Although he thought it was a mammal, its exotic, even bizarre appearance mystified Shaw: Of all the Mammalia yet known it seems the most extra-ordinary in its conformation; exhibiting the perfect resemblance of the beak of a Duck engrafted on the head of a quadruped. So accurate is the similitude, that, at first view, it naturally excites the idea of some deceptive preparation by artificial means; the very epidermis, proportions, serratures, manner of opening, and other particulars is the beak of a shoveler, or other broad-billed species of duck, presenting themselves to the view; nor is it without the most minute and rigid examination that we can persuade ourselves of its being the real beak or snout of a quadruped. (Shaw 1799, p. 384) Three years later, the Göttingen anatomist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, who is famous for his discoveries of mammoths and crinoids (an extinct class of echinoderms), described the platypus from a second skin sent by Hunter. Blumenbach named the animal Ornithorhynchus paradoxus (paradoxical bird-snout; Blumenbach 1803). The world now had two names for this exotic creature. Unknown to Shaw, however, the generic name Platypus had been used for a genus of beetles in 1793. Such are the strictures of the international rules of zoological nomenclature that Platypus had to be abandoned. However, Shaw's specific epithet stood. The platypus thus became Ornithorhynchus anatinus. It seems entirely appropriate that this animal, which so resembles a hybrid, should bear a hybrid name. Ornithorhynchus greatly puzzled and agitated naturalists of the day. Was it a mammal, as Shaw thought? Did it represent a new group of animals? Could it be a “missing link” between two well-known groups, especially between reptiles and mammals? Did it represent a new class of vertebrates, as the French anatomist Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire maintained? Or was it a hoax, as many suspected and as Shaw himself wondered, even as he wrote the initial description? Did the females lay eggs, as birds and many reptiles do? Or did they give birth to live young, as mammals do? The creature, with its fur, duck bill, and webbed feet, would have appeared even more paradoxical had it been known that it laid eggs and suckled its young. No animal was known to do that. Furthermore, no animal was supposed to do that. In the taxonomy established for European species by European naturalists, it was axiomatic that all milk-producing animals give birth to live young, and so, by definition, are mammals. Warm-blooded egg-laying animals were birds. Cold-blooded egg-laying animals were reptiles. There was no place in this scheme for the platypus. A hoax—the bill of a duck attached to the skin of a mole—would have been in keeping with a number of other bizarre animals fabricated and displayed as genuine in Britain and America in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Robert Knox, the Edinburgh anatomist whose name we now associate with body snatching and grave robbing (and possibly even murder) to obtain human cadavers for dissection, provided a rationale for suspicions that the platypus was a hoax in his account of the animal's anatomy: It is well known that the specimens of this extraordinary animal first brought to Europe were considered by many as impositions. They reached England by vessels which had navigated the Indian seas, a circumstance in itself sufficient to rouse the suspicions of the scientific naturalist, aware of the monstrous impostures which the artful Chinese had so frequently practised on European adventurers; in short, the scientific felt inclined to class this rare production of nature with eastern mermaids and other works of art; but these conjectures were immediately dispelled by an appeal to anatomy. (Knox 1823, p. 27) If not a hoax, then Ornithorhynchus was truly paradoxical. New findings only added to the paradox. In 1802, the surgeon and anatomist Sir Everard Home reported that the males had internal testes—like reptiles and unlike mammals—and that both males and females had a cloaca, a common opening for the alimentary, excretory, and reproductive tracts (Home 1802). Possession of a cloaca is a reptilian characteristic, more particularly a characteristic of reptiles that retain their eggs within the body, where the young hatch. Such a mixture of structures quickly established the notion of the platypus as a missing link between reptiles and mammals. Other European anatomists then set to work in the “platypus industry.” The great German anatomist Johann F. Meckel published four influential accounts, the first (Meckel 1823) on the nature of the spur and poison gland in males. In the second (Meckel 1824) he mentioned the existence of mammary glands, but he did not describe them until his detailed papers of a few years later (Meckel 1826, 1827). The secretion of milk in a live animal was described for the first time 6 years later by Lieutenant the Honorable Lauderdale Maule of the 39th Regiment of the British Army, which was stationed in New South Wales. According to Maule's description (Maule 1832a, 1832b), the mammary glands were not typical; fur covered the nipples, and the glands themselves were quite small, except during lactation. However, the presence of mammary glands—no matter how unusual or atypical—satisfied many naturalists that these animals must be mammals. The absence of wings and feathers meant that they were not birds, and their warm bloodedness and the presence of a diaphragm meant that they were not reptiles. Anatomical features suggesting egg laying were, however, consistent with the platypus not being a mammal. Certain bones found in the pectoral girdles, otherwise known only from of reptiles the platypus at the between reptiles and that made it a missing was the platypus a Or a with a It paradoxical. now in the and However, in the years after their these animals were in an of and had especially for Shaw, the first to a live included them with and in a group that called now known as the (Shaw 1799, Home thought that they to a new of mammals (Home 1802). Geoffroy for a class for the platypus and which he named of the single opening for and but he was about their to other mammals. and in a new the the German anatomist the between reptiles and mammals. the French anatomist and in the of at the Natural History a of the to Although Meckel the mammary glands, he was not that they were true mammalian mammary that the platypus a class by A would have these early at It was not until late in the nineteenth century that specimens of what were described as species of platypus were The Ornithorhynchus was described from a and lower by the of the years later it was to be a specimen of the living platypus, anatinus. A second Ornithorhynchus by the is now known to be a now the platypus is not described by and and is only by upper a of the lower and an described by is an early The of both species are to the found in living Modern do not have the and are by on both the upper and lower The most of a new species, from the has but is otherwise an In the debate the and of the platypus, national and were at as much to the nation whose the scientific world. Britain was against against against Although they that the was a mammal, and that the eggs within the body as in even at up to in the eggs were much larger than mammalian the English Geoffroy and that the eggs were as in birds and but that a and other that were true mammals that produced live young. saw that the to the paradoxical platypus lay in its a time after the discovery of mammary glands and milk laid eggs was to the The that all milk-producing animals give birth to live young was so entrenched that of egg laying by were not There are of egg production and birth to one of which have is in the are a and the young are not in an animals and mammals are suckled at mammary with large of are takes place the body of the and the young from the eggs after they are animals birds and reptiles. are within the body, and are from in the egg and not a The young within the body of the animals some and and four species of Although and some of the early in New South Wales were that laid eggs, the European scientific are the of by the evidence of and were even to be by or by provided by The Sydney to of that laid eggs with the that evidence must be and reported on by in the world has then all the scientific world and where they have not in scientific they came from the surgeon Sir John wrote in the of the Society of on is and in in the years later, P. to or with a which live in the of the and which lay In a to a John of that he had found two eggs in a in which he had a platypus These eggs were the size of a and were soft, and being without or to a the eggs before their be they the first platypus eggs to be Or were they the eggs of a in the by a to the other published of eggs that were to be from the platypus. Geoffroy published a description of a egg in only to that the egg was much large to have the The Australian of this egg with the of that is at to an Australian that the egg is that of the common It was not unusual for the settlers or even the to eggs of other species to them as platypus two eggs by one a the other a much to his George the first and of the Australian who had the of and the of their egg production in New South Wales and who was an important in the of in supplied the specimens on which based his papers on the of and of these papers and in to the Royal Society in thought that the to the of lay eggs live young would be to and a platypus during what was thought to be the and this he to By however, was that such of (and and in the name of would to their extinction. In the to his of animal and of a in pages of which are to the Figure A of the platypus by for the Society, plate in by George used on the of the Many of the Australian and birds are not only to that but even of rare and such has been the of that they are in a of in time, have been and the of be from their the Ornithorhynchus and the the and the like the and only in the pages of the The that what he has been to with to this important not be without to p. by the of the century the platypus was to extinction. by however, are what all considered the last of evidence for platypus with a that the were in their that laid eggs, he himself from examination of that they did not eggs that be to the “platypus only to be at the by an young The the of lay from in and years later was in to was a of who had while in the only after being of In his established the which became the zoological of the the first used the a the and of the Royal Society, and of from to to in to the of lay His was to and The of specimens were, of had for without In set up on the banks of the River in and the to work for and platypus of and many in the water, for the eggs of the of the to and very had from the In the second of had in but it was not until the that the laid eggs from the of In the an Ornithorhynchus whose first egg had been second egg was in a of appearance larger that of was at a to a p. A has of of the and and the first of as the head to The presence of an of such an in the of a platypus that before the eggs were the sent in the to a where it would the to of the of of the Sydney to it to the British at p. which has few for in to the of the British for the of in It the by the of platypus egg production was The four in the a of do lay eggs large of the is not A egg is what birds the egg just like a By one of of so common in scientific on one after the platypus with the of the South Australian found an in the of an the very that was read in the echidna egg to the Royal Society of South in If is on the of of then and the for the discovery of in If is on the of of the then has published his findings in not until Ornithorhynchus eggs now second place to the A little after his was read in a from to was to the Royal Society of New South Wales. has with The Platypus eggs were and should have been in New England by but is much more Platypus are quite to how they have not been The the are is the of the for They that it is the of the eggs having a of that to years in to the of and His were of a naturalist, to the of for the of the and only by as he described them in a to on the other from of the of animals he and an of to work to his In of he females from a single in an to eggs or In and employed to was not that in the of a few had the of platypus egg laying and (and the An echidna found by and it an egg from its sent another this time to in to that he had all There was no of this of platypus egg continued for some In his on the in the edition of the the renowned evidence, that not to be evidence that the eggs in this genus are In their on the platypus, however, and they wrote that established the that Platypus as well as is of the platypus is that live for like years and for their is one of a who is at years after is no that has an egg being did it is that he found a with an egg that he had The platypus from to on one to eggs eggs, in of are laid in a at the of a two quite different the banks of or a short used by both and a used by the to young. as long as and with first described by Maule in The Platypus in the banks of a where the is and and the and covered with or by the of the surface is the to a which the away from the a to and rising its a of some few from the edge this two a to the and in the which is a with and and more than from the water, or than two feet the surface of the of their were, with and (Maule 1832a, and the platypus as a link between and were what had in he like the platypus it is like the it its is quite but it is important to that the is well the egg is The tail the eggs to an with a of even the is much are their in this important in the for while fur the young a of some the in late Of of the platypus, has the double of the first work on the platypus based on a of and the first to animals in was no 6 a to the of and eggs by a animal in a single day. is more than half the animal's so much time the to so much time water, it is that in his David in as and the the Sir in he a famous at in In and what was until very the only platypus birth in the Australian Natural History in he was described as single most and influential naturalist in had a long with In late while was at one of four naturalists, the for near by the the River in which the Platypus the as it is called or the the for one It was all to no was not to a living Platypus or even a in Australia. saw only the of the Platypus of a duck), which the to in a made by the animals from one to The that he was the Platypus did not lay eggs, and that he had the young and his description of them with what from on the years and after he was not to a living by then of and at in as of of the British for the of to read It was reported that that it the of from a reptilian of with such a to human the of the platypus would to be felt in yet another of that is another much that is relevant to the nature of scientific evidence, orthodoxy, entrenched authority, the role of personalities in for in the preparation of this from the Natural and of and the of is

James Gleick

LOOKING FOR GOD'S FOOTPRINTS / James Gleick "Have you ever thought, Angelica," said Persse, "what a remarkable thing it is that the moon and the sun look to our eyes approximately the same size? . . . The odds against it happening by chance must be billions to one." "You don't think it was by chance?" "I think it's one of the great proofs of a divine creator," said Persse. "I think He had an eye for symmetry." —David Lodge, "Small World" SURE, IT'S EASY TO make fun. Our planet flies through space more smoothly than any airplane, covered with water yet never spilling a drop, so it must have had a Designer. Our eyes display too complex an architecture to be reached by random mutations, so they must have had a Biological Engineer. Our atmosphere contains just enough oxygen, just enough carbon to support life, so it must have had an Environmental Consultant. New York City offers a brilliantly conceived breeding ground for cockroaches; surely, therefore, we can deduce the existence of a cockroach deity. The so-called argument from design—from design, that is, to the existence of God—had barely been thought up before it was being satirized, and you can't always tell the serious versions from the parodies. But lately science has been upping the ante. No one cares any more that the moon is unusually large (although some have argued seriously that its tidal washing and splashing may have been a precondition for life's forward march out of the primordial oceans). Nowadays we have the incredibly well-tuned gravitational force, which, if put ever-so-slightly out of whack, would have turned the universe into a collection of red dwarf stars or blue giant stars, either way presumably inhospitable. We have the strong force in the atomic nucleus—a little stronger or a litter weaker, and stars apparently could not burn at all. The post-Big Bang expansion seems especially problematic. Nonscientists don't realize how lucky they are that the universe got bigger than a Ping Pong ball. When modern physicists and mathematicians calculate the odds against life as we know it, they no longer speak of "billions to one." They toss around numbers like IO40, or IO3"1, or ten to the ten to the thirtieth, a number that cannot even be typeset without either two levels of superscript or a universe full of zeroes. The Missouri Review · Il Certainly, for most of the last millennium, science and faith have been mortal enemies. Science explains; faith builds on the inexplicable. Certainly, amid the agnostic throng, few modern scientists talk openly about belief in God. Yet even so, as science staggers toward its Grand Unified Theory and other grails, some of its practitioners have been seeing an argument for God's existence in the esoterica of high-energy physics. They feel that somewhere in these cosmological coincidences, and also perhaps in the accumulating perfection of modern mathematics, lies the evidence of design that cannot be explained away. Perhaps, they feel, science is finally reaching a level of knowledge that will confirm God, instead of rendering Him superfluous. This is the argument that got its most vigorous and many-sided airing in John Updike's 1986 novel, Roger's Version. Though never quite so earnest, never quite so garrulous about it, some practicing scientists really do share at least a part of the feeling of Updike's pallid, pimpled antagonist, a computer scientist named Dale Köhler, that, as he says: "The most miraculous thing is happening. The physicists are getting down to the nitty-gritty, they've really just about pared things down to the ultimate details, and the last thing they ever expected to happen is happening. God is showing through." Updike's version contains its share of parody, to be sure. It also assembles the richest hodge-podge of scientific shoptalk to be found anywhere in fiction—absolutely authentic in its slangy allusions to cellular automata and fractal patterns and the Mandelbrot set. Dale Köhler knows his science, and he cannot be laughed at when he says, "They've been scraping away at physical reality all these centuries, and...