-Caveat Lector- > A Scientific Heretic Delves Beneath the Surface > Oil Isn't from Dinosaurs & Other Iconoclasms > By Ken Ringle > Washington Post Staff Writer > Monday, November 1, 1999; Page C1 > Computers used to cost millions. Now they're being given away. The country > was rapidly going broke. Now we've got a $115 billion budget surplus. > Butter was bad for us. Now we're not so sure. We're being forced to > reexamine all our old assumptions on millennial eve, right? > So maybe we should finally pay attention to Thomas Gold. He says the world > has an endless supply of oil and gas. > Gold, a Vienna-born physicist, cosmologist and general scientific heavy > lifter, founded and for many years directed the Cornell Center for > Radiophysics and Space Research. In his 79 years he's authored more than > 280 scholarly papers on subjects ranging from astronomy to zoology. > He's also a full-time heretic, periodically parachuting into some new > scientific field and infuriating academic plodders there with some > outlandishly bold new theory. More annoying, his theories usually turn out > to be right. Worst of all, he thinks the orthodox have so gummed up the > gates of knowledge that they were more open to breakthroughs 50 years ago. > Harvard biologist Stephen Jay Gould has labeled Gold "one of America's > most iconoclastic scientists." Says Gold himself: "In choosing a > hypothesis there is no virtue in being timid ... [but] I clearly would > have been burned at the stake in another age." > In 1947, fresh from pioneering wartime work on the development of radar, > he used his research into high-frequency receptors to publish an entire > new theory of mammalian hearing. Physiologists shrugged it off for 30 > years. Until auditory technology evolved enough to prove him correct. > In 1959, when everybody thought the surface of the moon was frozen lava, > Gold decided it was covered with dust from meteor impacts. Footprints of > the Apollo astronauts will testify eternally that he was was right about > that, too. > In 1967 astronomers trashed his suggestion that energy pulsating in the > distant universe was the signature of collapsing stars. The subsequent > observation of pulsars won two other scientists a Nobel Prize. And proved > Gold correct. > In 1992 he predicted that Martian meteorites might contain fossilized > microbes. Four years later NASA announced the same thing. > Now in a new book, "The Deep Hot Biosphere," Gold says the origin and bulk > of biological life is not on the surface of the Earth where the birds and > bunnies are, but deep within it. Moreover, that microscopic life force is > fueled by an inexhaustible supply of petroleum constantly migrating > outward from our planet's volcanic core. > Eight years ago, when Gold was still developing his theory, some > geologists were so incensed by it they petitioned to have the government > remove all mention of it from the nation's libraries. > "It was an effort at book-burning, pure and simple," Gold says, shuffling > around a computer-buzzing, paper-littered attic study as energetically > unkempt as he is. Most petroleum geologists, he says, "simply have no > concept of the laws of physics at work" beneath the Earth's crust. > People need to understand, he says, that the long-held assumption that oil > comes from the millennial composting of dinosaurs and ancient swamps has > always been dubious, whatever school science books may say. His theory of > a deep, hot biosphere doesn't just solve its contradictions, it sorts out > in the process such minor matters as the origin of all earthly life and > its relationship with the rest of the universe. > Is there any wonder it makes people nervous? > Way Outside the Box > <<...>> > What's unique about Thomas Gold, says astronomer Steve Maran of the > American Astronomical Society, is that unlike most scientists who are > content to "pursue the advancement of knowledge in small, incremental > steps," Gold "comes up with new ideas by starting from the original > principles" in some field where others have labored for years. > When that happens, he's often "treated like a curiosity that can't be > taken seriously," Maran says. "But he always shakes things up in a useful > way, often opens up entire new areas of thought. Some denounce him even as > they profit from the push he's given their thinking." > "Gold's style is in turn charming, intriguing and exasperating: short on > details (where the Devil lies) and long on fiats and suppositions," sighed > eminent geochemist Harmon Craig of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, > reviewing Gold's book in Eos, the journal of the American Geophysical > Union. > But if Gold is right about subterranean microbes being the seeds of all > life, and if they survive the Earth's next asteroid collision to restart > evolution, he adds, "Let us hope that when new humans finally emerge and > invent science they will have another Tom Gold to delight and exasperate > them with his theories." > On this particular day the heretic himself is stopping by the local > techno-emporium to pick up a new computer. It's a Macintosh, and with its > blue-and-white neon tones and "Star Trek" design it looks like something > morphed from one of his theories. It's unclear just why his former > computer succumbed. It was only a year old, but he may have made it think > too much. > "Supposedly all my files have been transferred into this one," he says > skeptically, accepting only a modicum of help lugging it through the > garage and up to his study. "But of course, you never really know." > Gold says his curiosity has been getting him in trouble ever since his > father gave him a watch when he was little and he took it apart. He's > worked at reassembling things ever since. > One of his boldest constructs was the steady-state theory of the universe, > which is now regarded, says Craig, as "beautiful but untrue." Still, as > cosmologist Freeman Dyson of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton > says, if Gold hadn't put forward the steady-state theory, astronomers > might not have been inspired enough to dream up the Big Bang theory, which > replaced it. > We probably shouldn't be too hard on Gold for not quite figuring out the > universe on his first try. After all, he rushed through Cambridge in only > two years (there was a war on) and his degree was in engineering. > But his mind had impressed his friend Hermann Bundi, one of Cambridge's > famous wartime coterie of mathematical geniuses, who suggested Gold would > be useful on a highly classified war project. There was only one problem: > Gold was interned at the time as an enemy alien. He and his parents were > Austrian citizens, and despite being refugees from Hitler (his father was > Jewish), they had been technically classified as Germans by the British > after war broke out in 1939. > "I was probably the first person to go right from internment as an enemy > to work on an ultra-secret project like radar," he muses. > After the war he went back to Cambridge where, impressed with his > brilliance, administrators presented him with a prized four-year > fellowship to do anything he wanted. > "I told them I would like to teach advanced physics," Gold remembers. > "They said that was fine. But since I had never studied any physics, I had > to learn it myself night by night, before each lecture." > In the process, he read widely on all sides of the subject and became > convinced all physics was related. From that he published his steady-state > theory, which held that whatever had happened once in the universe must be > occurring someplace in the universe today. > That made a big splash in scientific circles and, says Gold, "I'm still > not entirely sure it's wrong." From there he moved on in 1953 to become > assistant to Britain's astronomer royal, who heads the Greenwich > Observatory and holds one of the country's most prestigious intellectual > posts. > There he says he accidentally discovered the ultrasound phenomenon now > used to check out unborn babies. But his boss decided it had nothing to do > with astronomy and tore down his laboratory, so Gold left for the United > States. > He landed in Harvard in 1955, "either the youngest or the second youngest > full professor on the faculty. I forget which." But he refused to live in > Boston and detested commuting from the suburbs, so within four years he > had migrated to a "much more livable" environment at Cornell. > He's been here causing trouble ever since. > Fueling Passion > <<...>> > Gold, who holds prestigious appointments to the National Academy of > Sciences and the Royal Society of London, turned his attention to > petroleum during the energy crisis of the late 1970s. He has not been > universally welcomed by industry geologists. Gold's hypothesis on the > origin of petroleum amid deep hot life "is not very well defended," > sniffed geoscientist Alton Brown of Atlantic Richfield in a review of "The > Deep Hot Biosphere" in American Scientist last July. "We ... know too much > about the subsurface and about petroleum geochemistry to seriously > consider these ideas." > But Gold is used to being dissed. While scientists like Brown have > traditionally sought to explain petroleum by looking in the ground, Gold > says, he developed his theory by looking in the other direction. > Far from being an earthly substance, he says, petroleum and its component > hydrocarbons are present throughout the universe. You find them in > meteorites. You find them in captured interplanetary dust. You can detect > them quite abundantly on one of the moons of Saturn. About all this there > is no scientific argument. > As an astronomer and geophysicist, he says, "it always seemed absurd to me > to see petroleum hydrocarbons on other planets, where there was obviously > never any vegetation, even as we insist that on Earth they must be > biological in origin." > Yet wherever earthly petroleum is found, even miles below ground, oil > always contains biological material, such as the wreckage of old, dead > cells. If "fossil fuel" wasn't formed from ancient plants and animals, how > did that material get there? > Another puzzle bothered Gold, though he says it seems to concern few > others: the gas helium. Helium is one of the essential elements of the > universe, present in trace amounts everywhere in nature. As a so-called > "noble" gas, it stays chemically aloof from other elements, never > combining like, say, hydrogen and oxygen do to form a third substance like > water. Yet the only place on Earth helium is ever found in abundance is > with pools of petroleum underground. > What, Gold wondered, could explain that? > Then in 1977 a tiny research submarine probing deep beneath the Pacific > Ocean near the Galapagos Islands discovered something that revolutionized > our understanding of life. > More than 1 1/2 miles down on an ocean floor made otherwise barren by > darkness and crushing pressure, the sub's floodlights revealed entirely > new ecosystems living amid the scalding 600-degree heat and mineral-rich > eruptions of subsea volcanic vents. On subsequent expeditions, scientists > were astounded to find an entire food chain at the vents--blood red giant > tube worms, albino crabs and other creatures--thriving on previously > unknown forms of heat-loving microbes where no possibility of life was > thought to exist. > That got Gold thinking. > Last year, in his book "Consilience," Harvard entomologist E.O. Wilson, a > polymathic heretic like Gold, stirred the scientific pot by arguing that > all forms of human knowledge are really branches of biology, and serve an > evolutionary goal. But Gold goes further than that. > "Perhaps biology is just a branch of thermodynamics," he has written, and > the history of life is just "a gradual systematic development toward more > efficient ways of degrading energy. ... The chemical energy available > inside a planetary body is then more likely to have been the first energy > source, and surface creatures--like elephants and ... people--which feed > indirectly on solar energy--are just a [much later] adaptation of that > life to ... circumstances on the surface of our planet." > Endless Oil? > <<...>> > Working from that hypothesis, Gold's theory goes like this: Oil and gas > were born out of the Big Bang and trapped in the Earth 4.5 billion years > ago in randomly dispersed molecular form. But the intense heat of the > Earth's volcanic core "sweats them out" of the rocks that contain them, > sending them migrating outward through the porous deep Earth because they > are more fluid and weigh less. In a region between 10 and 300 kilometers > deep, the hydrocarbons nourish vast colonies of microbes where all of > earthly life began, and where today there's a vastly greater mass of > living things than exist on the surface of the planet. The migrating oil > and gas "sweep up" the biological wreckage of this life as they percolate > upward, together with molecules of helium, all of which eventually get > trapped and concentrated for periods in near-surface reservoirs where oil > is usually found. > As far out as all this may sound, in the years since Gold first noised the > outlines of his theory, researchers throughout the world have documented > extensively the presence of active microbes in the deep Earth under > conditions of heat and pressure once thought impossible to sustain life. > Furthermore, some oil reservoirs long thought exhausted now appear to be > mysteriously refilling. Gold considers the best proof of his program the > extraction of 12 tons of crude oil in 1990 from a 6-kilometer-deep well > drilled in the long-presumed oil-free granite of central Sweden. > Chris Flavin of World Watch Institute says he's found many elements of > Gold's theory "pretty persuasive" in the light of such discoveries, and > says there's much to cheer environmentalists. If Gold is right, he says, > the greatest abundance of accessible hydrocarbons will be found in the > form of natural gas. Gas is not only the cleanest-burning energy source > right now, it promises "to be the bridge to the hydrogen economy in the > future" which will be cleaner still, he says. > But skeptics remain. > "We know there's carbon deep within the Earth because that's where we find > diamonds," says Nick Woodward, a geoscience program manager with the > Energy Department. "And we know there's water, at least in small amounts, > which, since it's hydrogen and oxygen, gives us the building blocks for > petroleum hydrocarbons. ... "But whether that therefore means the source > of all hydrocarbons is in the deep Earth, I think that's highly > questionable." > Gold shrugs off such unbelievers. The scientific world, allegedly > searching for truth, is really little more hospitable to it than when > Galileo fell afoul of the Inquisition, he says. > "You know, I am very lucky that I received recognition and honors early in > my career, so that by the time I started making real waves I already had > stature," he says. "Even with my record I've had a terrible time getting > some of these papers published. Without it nobody would touch me. ... > "The problem is this system of peer review" wherein established scholars > in a field pass judgment on new papers before publication, he says. "That > rewards small steps but discourages bold ideas and the very sort of > cross-discipline thinking that can provide the greatest breakthroughs. I > don't think there's any question that we produced more great ideas in the > first half of the 20th century than we have in the second"--when peer > review has ruled. > Nevertheless, Gold soldiers on. He's presently writing his memoirs of a > lifetime of heresy. Chosen title: "Getting the Back Off the Watch." > © 1999 The Washington Post > > > _____________________________ > Johan Labuschagne > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Tel: +27 16 960 3294 > Fax: +27 16 960 2781 > > DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! 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