<br><h2>CHAPTER 1</h2><p><b>The 5 Essential Elements of Life</b></p><p><i>The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom thisemotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder andstand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.</i></p><p>—Albert Einstein</p><br><p>The greatest mystery is that of existence itself; that the universe and lifewithin it exists - that there is something at all, rather than nothing. Inthe midst of this spiraling growth of our universe that began at speedsfaster than light, a "Goldilocks" planet (Earth) evolved with conditionsand elements that are not too hot and not too cold, but "just right" forlife. Life has been a hero's journey of 13.77 billion years, a long pilgrimageon the razor-like thin path of eternity from the ineffable big bang, to thepresent moment where we can stand together and gaze at the night sky inawe and wonderment.</p><p>Stargazing connects us to this vastness we call our universe, but asmany stars that seemingly pop out on a clear night we are only seeingroughly 10,000 of them with our naked eye. Our galaxy alone containssome 300 billion stars! On top of that, our nearest galaxy Andromeda ismuch larger then ours and yet appears as only a small fuzzy patch on adark night sky. Also, leading cosmologists estimate there are AT LEAST100 billion galaxies in the universe. Think about that!</p><p>This book is an amazing journey through the cosmic body of theuniverse and onto the body of our planet earth (or Gaia), and then to thebody of man and his 100 trillion cells. This book is an exploration into theelements needed for life. What man needs to create, maintain and sustainan ever-increasing level of health and energy. Health is Life and Life isHealth. There is nothing more auspicious to our sojourn here on earththan to live in a body full of health, married to a mind and spirit open toall of its incredible wonders.</p><p>Modern physics is now shedding light on the great serendipity of lifeand the conditions needed to create it. The great mystery that modernphysics puts in front of us, is the precise balance that all the forces andelements strike for the universe, our galaxy, our solar system, our planetand its over 7 billion humans and uncountable other life forms to exist andbe alive. Before we dive into the essential elements needed for the healthof our body, lets take a brief journey into the amazing circumstances thatwere needed for life in the universe to exist at all. The purpose of this is toexpand your mind while opening up your imagination to the world anduniverse we live in with a greater sense of appreciation and wonder.</p><br><p><b>Our Bubble Universe is "Tuned" for Life to Exist</b></p><p><i>Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man'sdesire to understand.</i></p><p>—Neil Armstrong</p><br><p>According to Stephen Hawking, M-Theory (the source of all prevailingversions of string theory) allows for some 10<sup>500</sup> possible universes as differentpermutations in the fundamental constants. Whether that is correct or not,modern cosmological evidence is already hinting that there are adjacentuniverses to ours corroborating the idea that our universe is only one ofmany within a grand Multiverse (collection of all universes). However,our universe is not just an average face in the crowd. It's a very specialanomaly that is both geared for sustainable growth and "dialed in" for thepossibility of life.</p><p>According to modern physics, there are 4 forces (gravity,electromagnetism, the weak force and the strong nuclear force) and 12fundamental particles (the various quarks and leptons). If the strength ofthese forces (called the coupling constants) or the mass of the particles wereoff by just a little, life would not be possible.</p><p>For example, if the strong nuclear force was changed by just .5%, orthe electromagnetic force was off by 4%, the fusion process needed forcarbon and oxygen (our body is 65% oxygen by weight and 18% carbon)would not occur in stars and life, as we know it would not exist. Or ifthe weak force (responsible for radioactive decay) were weaker, all thehydrogen in the early universe would have been converted to helium andas a result there would be no normal stars. If the weak force were stronger,supernovas would not produce the heavier elements we need for life. If themass of a proton were .2% heavier, they would decay into neutrons andthereby destabilize the atom. Also, the masses of quarks are optimized forthe creation of a large family of stable nuclei as seen on our periodic table.If the quark masses were off by just a little, there would be far fewer stableatoms and again no life (our bodies require a broad spectrum of some 40+elements on the periodic table). There are many more examples of this "finetuning" for initial conditions, but thhhhe bottom line is that our universe isoptimized and tuned for existence and life.</p><p>As a metaphor, consider someone blowing bubbles ... Many of thebubbles immediately pop, some last for a short period, but every now andthen you get one that expands and stays together and flies away as far asyou can see. Similarly most of the variations of possible universes are short-livedbubbles with only a few getting large enough to expand significantlyand even fewer with the ability to host life. We live in a bubble...