ter or air or rocks, nostars and planets, no distant gassy clouds or smake terial. Atoms are so numerous and necessary t  t actually exist at all. t requires to fillitself icles of matter or to produce ligy and ties on ually be a universe at all. For t time t. toms and no universe for to float about in.

    t all anywhere.

    So toms. But t t you oms and t t of  you o be y-first century and smart enougo kno, you also o be traordinary string of biological good fortune. Survival on Eartrickybusiness. Of t ed since time, most-99.99 percent-are no longer around. Life on Eart onlybrief but dismayingly tenuous. It is a curious feature of our existence t  t is very good at promoting life but even better at extinguis.

    ts for only about four million years, so if you  be as fickle as toms t made you. You must beprepared to c yourself-sion,everyto do so repeatedly. ts muco get from quot;protoplasmal primordial atomic globulequot; (as t andSullivan song put it) to sentient uprigo mutate neraitsover and over in a precisely timely manner for an exceedingly long  3.8 billion years you ed on it, groy sails, laid eggs, flicked tongue, been sleek,been furry, lived underground, lived in trees, been as big as a deer and as small as a mouse,and a million tiniest deviation from any of tionary ss, and youmigony sop of your y feet for amouthful of delicious sandworms.

    Not only o be attacime immemorial to a favoredevolutionary line, but you remely-make t miraculously-fortunate i