/sci/ - Science & Math » Thread #11804803

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I’m not good at Chemistry

Anonymous Tue 16 Jun 15:13:30 2020 No.11804803 View Reply Original Report

Quoted By: >>11804810 >>11804855 >>11804872 >>11806620 >>11806634

Hello /sci/ I need some help
I’m writing a book, and the story takes place on another planet. Getting to the point, what kind of elements do you think would comprise Copper-Based life?

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 16 Jun 2020 15:17:46 No.11804810 Report

Quoted By: >>11804824

>>11804803
Bugs use a copper based chemical in their blood to transport oxygen as opposed to mammals that use iron.
This is why bug juice is greenish and blood is red.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 16 Jun 2020 15:25:40 No.11804824 Report

Quoted By: >>11804826

>>11804810
Let me rephrase, I mean a completely different chemical composition that just adding copper to the normal C,H,N,O,S formula for life

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 16 Jun 2020 15:26:43 No.11804826 Report

Quoted By:

>>11804824
Chnops, my bad

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 16 Jun 2020 15:35:53 No.11804855 Report

Quoted By: >>11804881

>>11804803
>what kind of elements do you think would comprise Copper-Based life?
could very well still be based on carbon since both iron and copper can exist in the +2 oxydation state. Go for silicon if you feel creative but there's no direct relationship with copper whatsoever.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 16 Jun 2020 15:41:12 No.11804872 Report

Quoted By: >>11806547

>>11804803
Just make shit up. Whatever nonsense your proposing is just as implausible as something an “educated chemist” would propose. Anything besides carbon based life is impossible

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 16 Jun 2020 15:43:47 No.11804881 Report

Quoted By: >>11806547

>>11804855
as for copper in haemoglobin, I mean. You can't have a totally copper based life form in reality.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 16 Jun 2020 16:03:26 No.11804949 Report

Quoted By:

Thanks for all the input, it’s been very helpful! If I have any more questions I’ll make sure to post them :)

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 17 Jun 2020 00:45:12 No.11806547 Report

Quoted By: >>11806572

>>11804872
>>11804881
How do you know it's impossible to have life without carbon?!

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 17 Jun 2020 00:53:13 No.11806572 Report

Quoted By: >>11806608

>>11806547
Carbon is the backbone of an entire subfield of chemistry. It's just such a useful element for making all kinds of stable and useful molecules across a range of temperatures and conditions that one would expect on habitable planets.
Silicon is usually pointed at because it's the next element in the carbon group and it sounds cool to say "silicon based lifeform."

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 17 Jun 2020 01:08:06 No.11806608 Report

Quoted By: >>11806615 >>11806698

>>11806572
I get it, all organic compounds that we know are made of carbon, but to claim that it's impossible to create life based on another element, is a bit bold, considering we know very little about the origin of life, and we haven't created a living organism yet
carbon was the key for life on earth (because of earth conditions), maybe another element could bring life on another planet, who knows ?!

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 17 Jun 2020 01:11:16 No.11806615 Report

Quoted By: >>11806650

>>11806608
no, go fuck yourself
you've already decided on a premise and will ignore scientific evidence to the contrary so just listen to the other anon and make shit up and never post here again

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 17 Jun 2020 01:13:31 No.11806620 Report

Quoted By:

>>11804803
Your an autist and your book is autistic.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 17 Jun 2020 01:18:50 No.11806634 Report

Quoted By: >>11806834

>>11804803
You're autistic and your book is autistic. You have a mind of a child. You can't even fathom how much you don't understand about basic chemistry and biology, yet you want to create a scientifically accurate new version of LIFE.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 17 Jun 2020 01:26:45 No.11806650 Report

Quoted By: >>11806723

>>11806615
>>11806615
bitch, i'm not the writer (OP)
I want to know what makes you so confident to say that the only element that organic structures can be built upon, ANYWHERE IN THE UNIVERSE, is carbon

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 17 Jun 2020 01:43:22 No.11806698 Report

Quoted By: >>11806749 >>11806753

>>11806608
I didn't say it was impossible. But just telling you why if there's life out there carbon seems pretty optimal.
That being said, just because you're still "carbon based" doesn't mean that you can't have wildly different biochemistry. I mean if you were a hypothetical alien from another atmosphere and you zipped by earth in a UFO you'd be shocked to see a planet full of life that seems to thrive in oxygen because its caustic as fuck. Look up the oxygen catastrophe if you want to know why we're air breathers.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 17 Jun 2020 01:50:57 No.11806723 Report

Quoted By: >>11806746 >>11806753

>>11806650
Because you want an element that is a good reactive and that also holds strong bonds, and lots of them too. In other terms, many covalent bonds, low mass.

The carbon column is the one capable of having the most covalent bonds, which in turn makes carbon the most likely building block for very complex chemical compounds. Carbon is the lightest of that group.

Other candidates are Nitrogen and Silicon, but Silicon is far heavier, and nitrogen ultimately is less good at it than C. It is more electronegative, but I don't know if that compensates at all.

C being the basis of life is just occam's razor. It's way easier and thus way likelier that lifeforms are carbon based.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 17 Jun 2020 01:54:02 No.11806736 Report

Quoted By:

In other words OP, copper being an extremely stable compound, you won't see lifeforms that are based off of it or any metal. They are just way too heavy for that to happen.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 17 Jun 2020 01:59:19 No.11806746 Report

Quoted By: >>11806754

>>11806723
You could even argue that life as we know it is partially nitrogen based.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 17 Jun 2020 02:00:31 No.11806749 Report

Quoted By:

>>11806698
Yeah you're mixing up cause and effect. If we didn't switch to using the very electronegative but not-so-that-you-can't break-the-bonds oxygen, we wouldn't have grown to become the multicellular powerhouses they are now. The reason why fishes are dumb dumbs is because there is more oxygen extracted through air than water

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 17 Jun 2020 02:02:50 No.11806753 Report

Quoted By: >>11806772

>>11806723
>>11806698
Ok, i think i'm convinced

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 17 Jun 2020 02:03:00 No.11806754 Report

Quoted By:

>>11806746
Indeed. N and C have a lot of things in common. But C still takes the cake because of his extra bond.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 17 Jun 2020 02:08:24 No.11806761 Report

Quoted By: >>11808336

Typically, to sum it up,the most likely candidates in order of likeliness are :
_Carbon
_Nitrogen
_Silicon
_Phosphorus

Honorable mention for Arsenic, while pretty heavy, still is quite electronegative and could be considered a likely candidate too in an energy-rich environment.

Any other elements and it is just not realistic.

Anonymous

View Same Google iqdb SauceNAO silicoid.png, 49KiB, 299x332

Anonymous Wed 17 Jun 2020 02:12:46 No.11806772 Report

Quoted By: >>11808113 >>11808387

>>11806753
Honestly if you want to build some good alien races, go find the manuals to the Master of Orion games where the majority of the fluff text was surprisingly well thought out lore for the aliens, like how aquatic races suck at science and industry, but produce way more food and can have bigger populations of ocean and terran planets because muh ocean. The silicoids were sentient crystals that didn't need to produce food because they ate rocks, and weren't affected by planet condition, pollution, radiation, etc. but were unable to engage in diplomacy with alien races because they were so weird and repulsive there was no way to have a meaningful dialogue beyond declaring war.

Anonymous

View Same Google iqdb SauceNAO il_794xN.1878417899_a8os.jpg, 61KiB, 794x794

Anonymous Wed 17 Jun 2020 02:18:59 No.11806781 Report

Quoted By:

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 17 Jun 2020 02:44:40 No.11806834 Report

Quoted By: >>11807477

>>11806634
Yeah, I’m pretty unknowledgeable. However, my book isn’t about science or chemistry.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 17 Jun 2020 07:58:15 No.11807477 Report

Quoted By: >>11808111

>>11806834
That's ok but then you shouldn't try to be scientifically accurate about things even the best scientists in the field don't know about.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 17 Jun 2020 13:37:49 No.11808111 Report

Quoted By:

>>11807477
True enough. Let me rephrase it as; I’m trying to make it have a scientific basis, saying that I wanted it to be scientifically accurate was a bit of an exaggeration.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 17 Jun 2020 13:38:58 No.11808113 Report

Quoted By: >>11808270

>>11806772
Also, thanks very much. There’s some damn good reading involved in this!

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 17 Jun 2020 14:47:12 No.11808270 Report

Quoted By:

>>11808113
The second game is still one of the best 4x games ever made too.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 17 Jun 2020 15:15:10 No.11808336 Report

Quoted By: >>11808382 >>11808429

>>11806761
Can Nitrogen and Phosphorus even serve as a skeleton for organic molecules? I always assumed they can only be used as the functional bits.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 17 Jun 2020 15:33:35 No.11808382 Report

Quoted By:

>>11808336
Imho i do not think so. But in an ammonia rich environment (which like water is a polar solvent)with little carbon ? Who knows.

I'm just saying it wouldn't break suspension of disbelief if you chose one of those instead of fucking copper.

Granted, phosphorus and silicium ones may look a bit more blobby.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 17 Jun 2020 15:34:51 No.11808387 Report

Quoted By:

>>11806772
Aren't the silicoids the blorg from stellaris ?

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 17 Jun 2020 15:50:36 No.11808429 Report

Quoted By:

>>11808336
you'd need something in between, N-N and P-P bonds are unstable af.
P-O bonds are pretty versatile, so that may be plausible. Not sure what you could do to make nitrogen into a decent backbone.

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