The power of stars, used so intelligently it can nurture a baby.
The Lever Institute studies leverage: where in nature a small, well-placed act moves something vast.
↓Give me a place to stand, and I will move the earth.
δός μοι πᾶ στῶ καὶ τὰν γᾶν κινάσω · Archimedes
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A new kind of venture.
Every great force in nature has a point where a small act moves it. We look for those points, wherever they are.
I
Find the lever
In the fusion of stars and the catalysis of a single enzyme. In resonance, light, living cells and the structure of matter. Anywhere a little, well placed, moves a lot.
II
Find a place to stand
Theory, experiment and computation, together, until the lever is real and understood. No discipline is the point. The lever is the point.
III
Bring it to scale
Step vast power down, through every scale between, until it arrives in a form that can nurture a living thing.
A form having very little energy enters into and directs a much greater energy.
A very small cause which escapes our notice determines a considerable effect that we cannot fail to see.
If, indeed, the sub-atomic energy in the stars is being freely used to maintain their great furnaces, it seems to bring a little nearer to fulfilment our dream of controlling this latent power for the well-being of the human race.
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 starstuff.
What an organism feeds upon is negative entropy.
It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material.
From so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
In nature nothing exists alone.
Science itself, therefore, may be regarded as a minimal problem, consisting of the completest possible presentment of facts with the least possible expenditure of thought.
Places within a complex system where a small shift in one thing can produce big changes in everything.
What I want to talk about is the problem of manipulating and controlling things on a small scale.
My own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.
A stick pushed under a stone, a penknife, a shovel, a see-saw, all these things are one and the same, they are all “levers”. In this idea there is something both terrifying and alluring.