Of Apple Pies, Stardust, and the Cosmos..

"The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of star stuff".

– Carl Sagan

Today's inspiration came from completing yet another puzzle. It was a quote from famous Astronomer and Planetary Scientist, Carl Sagan.

Like most words, I came to know of the word "Elements" in school. As far as I knew, till the longest time, there were two meanings to that word. One came from the Chemistry class, where we were made to learn the Periodic Table by heart. Basically, this Table listed all the chemical elements that constitute almost everything around us, even in us. And we were made to learn about their individual properties, as well as those of the compounds made up of more than one Element.

The second meaning was introduced, at least to me, in the literature class, while reading a play of Shakespeare, probably 'A midsummer night's dream', and it meant the elements of Nature, like Earth, Wind, Water and Fire, which, proposed by some thinkers and healers, also form parts of us. This meaning made the word stay with me, as it seemed to connect the corporeal with the natural.

That was in the good old days, before the explosion of technology, and its advance in exponentially huge leaps and bounds. Due to the widespread reach of the internet, the instant availability of information at the push of a button has become the norm. The search engines, the social media sites, all spout trivia at us, sometimes even when one is not actively looking for anything.

The Omniscient, Omnipotent, and Omnipresent Artificial Intelligence is picking up on what we are even talking about, and providing us with connected information. Case in point : I began to notice, that whenever we talk about a vacation in a a particular city, very soon my device would show me advertisements of hotels in that very place. There are several such instances.

Thanks to this invasion of mind space, the phrase "Rare Earth Elements" began to swim into my consciousness. I was always aware that almost everything around was made up of substances acquired by raiding the resources of our fecund, bountiful planet, and was rapidly and forcefully becoming aware that these were fast being depleted, due to human avarice. But this term was a new one, and being thrown about quite a bit. Then as one got more information, it began to be borne in, that not being content with the plunder of the original elements and their compounds as they exist on earth, the human race had moved on to the rare earth minerals. Which, it would seem, are needed desperately for the further march of technology, supposedly to make our lives more comfortable.

Much brouhaha was made about the United States of America demanding them from China and Ukraine, in return for their past favours. Neodymium and Dysprosium, rare Magnets, and many more, totally unknown terms till now by most, became talking points, and flashpoints between the countries, since China refused to give in to the demands. There were retaliations, counter retaliations, escalations, all countries of the world scrambling to be on good terms with the countries who had reserves of these, and other such rare elements.

Out of all this, the only word that jumped out at me was, "Rare". And the general meaning of Rare earth elements, when searched for on the internet, was as follows:

"Rare elements" typically refers to a group of 17 metallic elements..These elements are not truly rare in terms of abundance, but their geological distribution and mineralogical properties make them challenging to extract in large, concentrated quantities. They are crucial components in various technologies, including electronics, renewable energy, and defense systems."

Thus explaining the frantic scramble for them.

While my only thought was, could we just not let what was so rare, be, as it was intended to? Our very bodies contain so many elements. As had just been reinforced by the quote from Carl Sagan. So how far are we willing to go, in our quest for achieving more, and more?

Are we going to turn to excavating them from our very flesh next?

What about my cherished Apple pies?!!

Elementary, my dear friends..

We have a choice.

To be, or not to be..

"The amazing thing is that every atom in your body came from a star that exploded…You are all stardust. You couldn't be here if stars hadn't exploded, because the elements – the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution – weren't created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way they could get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode….The stars died so that you could be here today."

― Lawrence M. Krauss, A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing