Paper
THE EARTH AS PART OF THE UNIVERSE
Published May 1, 1978 · F. Whipple
Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences
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Abstract
My active scientific life now spans half a century, a half century of breathtaking progress in understanding our Earth and the universe, a half century of constantly accelerating science, technology, and their applications. In this time we have learned more about the interior of the Moon than we knew about the interior of the Earth when I was born. Probably the same is true for Mars, Mercury, and perhaps Venus. Comparative planetology has becomc a viable s4bject for concentrated study. Day by day a sounder picture forms of the evolutionary processes that brought these solid planets into existence. Even so, the Earth still stands unique in the known universe. We have yet to observe liquid water elsewhere, or for that matter any liquid, although Mars exhibits convincing evidence for past episodes of torrential flooding. This article-highly personal, following the policy of the editors-portrays the development of one astronomer's view of the Earth. I was raised on an Iowa farm until the age of 15, with no formal training or parental background involving the intellectual or scientific world. I did have a flair for arithmetic and mechanical devices, accompanied by an inborn fascination with the infinities of timc and space and possessed by a stubborn curiosity. Dating some memories: by World War I before the age of ten I was very conscious of the immensity of the Earth and its global features, and impressed by events such as the sinking of the Titanic and Lusitania and the unparalleled ballistic range of the German Big Berthas, a fantastic 40 miles. The mystery of glaciation and the nature of its processes were brought to my attention in an elementary geology course at Occidental College, my only formal geological training. But my weak long-term memory for dissociated facts such as rock identification kept me from a direct career in Earth processes. At UCLA my mathematics major veered me through physics and finally focused on astronomy where time, space, mathematics, and physics had a common meeting ground.
The Earth remains unique in the known universe, unique in its uniqueness, unique in its evolutionary processes, and unique in its uniqueness in the universe.
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