Thanking Dead Stars for Our Addiction to Innovation

Published to Bottlerag.org

For better or worse, humanity is obsessed with progress. If the shareholder value isn’t increasing, then it is shrinking. If tomorrow’s media isn’t more radical than yesterday’s, then we are bored. If this year’s technology isn’t faster than last year’s, then what is the point?  

Technology is plagued with a dichotomy of creation and destruction; it both improves and complicates our lives. This is the modern age of addictive consumption and development, and today, it is all fueled by one thing: silicon.

It hasn’t always been silicon. Copper and tin forged together brought us out of the Stone Age and into the Bronze Age. We were able to make stronger tools, more powerful weapons, and prettier jewelry. Silver and gold enter the scene, and we began to stratify wealth within societies. Precious metals symbolized power in never-before-seen ways; it complicated the internal dynamics of society and brought us to where we are today.

With the discovery and expertise to process iron, the concept of industry would be unlocked. Iron is far more difficult to work with than bronze or gold, but it is significantly stronger. This single element pushed us into and through the Industrial Revolution, as novel processes for producing and utilizing the metal were discovered.

Materials shape society, and today, we are not in the age of stone, bronze, or iron; we are in the age of silicon.

Silicon is 14th element and the foundation of all our modern technology. It is easy to purify, and its unique crystalline atomic structure allows it to act as a semiconductor, meaning it can both insulate and conduct electricity. By slightly changing the composition, we can control whether silicon insulates or conducts. This is a necessary property for producing things like microchips. This one element is therefore used in almost every example of modern technology, from the computer you’re reading this article on to the speakers we listen to music with.

With the importance of silicon in modern society, we might expect to find scarcity – either natural or manufactured. It would be too good to be true if silicon were abundant, right? But that’s exactly what it is: silicon is the second most abundant element in Earth’s crust, surpassed only by oxygen. So, how did it all get here?

To understand this, we need to zoom out in both time and space. If we were to travel to the beginning of the cosmos, just after the Big Bang, we would find a universe rich in hydrogen and helium. In fact, most of the hydrogen and helium in the universe was created within the first 200 seconds after the big bang.

Hydrogen and helium are just the first two elements of the 118 that can be found on the periodic table, so where did the rest come from? Earth’s resources weren’t always here; most of the elements that we care about as humans were created by endless generations of stars. The majority of the elements heavier than hydrogen and helium – but less massive than iron – are created in the cores of stars via nuclear fusion. This is the engine of a star.

Nuclear fusion is essentially real-life alchemy, and it produces a lot of energy; the immense energy in the cores of stars collides atomic nuclei together to create heavier and heavier elements. This creation of heavier elements builds sequentially over time. Picture taking Lego bricks and adding them to each other to create a larger and larger block. A hydrogen atom might collide with a carbon atom to create a nitrogen atom, for example. This process is responsible for creating some of the silicon on Earth: within a complex chain of reactions, magnesium collides with helium to produce the silicon we have come to value so highly.

But that’s not the only source. Nuclear fusion continues until the 26th element: iron. Iron takes more energy than it gives during the process of nuclear fusion, so when a star reaches this critical point, it has officially run out of fuel. The star will then expand into a red giant or supergiant, and – depending on the mass of the star – it will do one of two things.  

If the star is small, like our Sun, it will gently let go of its outer layers and turn into a planetary nebula – leaving behind a white dwarf at the center. This is the skeleton of the previous star. On the other hand, if the star is massive, gravity will win, and the star will collapse and explode in what is called a supernova – leaving behind a neutron star or black hole at the center.  

Supernovae are some of the most energetic events in the universe, and this energy allows them to fuse elements heavier than iron. This is where the copper, silver, and gold of yesterday’s “Ages” were created, but it is also where the rest of our silicon came from.

Past generations of massive stars lived their lives, creating silicon in their cores, ran out of fuel, and exploded: creating more silicon and projecting these heavier elements into the interstellar medium – i.e., the space between stars.

In this interstellar medium – in a cloud of hydrogen, helium, other elements, and now, silicon – our Sun came to be. Around our Sun orbited a disk of gas and dust where bits clumped together to create the planets. Our Earth formed within this disk, abundant in heavier elements; this the story of where silicon comes from and how it got here.

From stone to bronze to steel, we made our way through the genealogy of tech. The silicon chip that is a symbol of our technological drive is just cleverly organized star dust. Humanity’s obsession with progress and development mirrors the creation of elements in the stars: always working towards the next best thing.

The very element that is the foundation of technology and Silicon Valley empires were born in the cores and explosion of massive stars. This technology – responsible for humanity’s utmost creativity and demise – came to be from the creativity and demise of the stars. We are continuing the lineage of past generations, humans and stars, in their search to create something new.  

Sources:

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4.  Shindengen Electric Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (n.d.). Semiconductor Basics. Retrieved from https://www.shindengen.com/products/semi/column/basic/semi/semi_basic.html

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