[~ot] why is programming so fun?

[BCS]

Reply to Simen,

> Chris Wright Wrote:
> 
>> BCS wrote:
>> 
>>> The chances of life happening by chance are something like that, if
>>> not worse. You could probably calculated a relative number for it
>>> with quantum physics and/or information theory and/or string theory
>>> or some such. IIRC there is a theory about how much info can be in a
>>> given volume.
>>> 
>> I don't think anyone has come close to describing the odds of
>> abiogenesis.
>> 
> I did some fun calculations after being given a book by Jehovah's
> Witnesses, as I've always been of the opinion that life being created
> by some higher being is less probable than it occuring naturally.
> 
> Way I figured was, I get 1 cubic centimetre of the simplest,
> carbon-based, self-replicating molecules, on this planet of 1 trillion
> cubic kilometers (one cubic centimetre was chosen as some arbitrary
> amount that might come into being by chance). Not by any chance a big
> chunk, but is it enough for life to survive? Let's first see how many
> self-replicating molecules we can fit into my small cube - 1.6
> quintillion. That ain't half bad. (Actually, I think the number was
> 1000 times bigger, but I don't remember the name of that number
> [Hexillion?], plus you can think of it as a bit of safety :p)
> 
> Now, spread that evenly across the world (258 billion square
> kilometers), and you get 162 such molecule for every square meter.
> With enough resources nearby, I'd give it a fairly good chance of
> survival.
> 

Someone once told me that if you take all the ways that you can assemble 
the parts of the simplest form of life and put them in once place, the ball 
would be something like the size of earth. (I havn't checked the math or 
anything like that)