Origins of Life

Dr. Vladivoj (Vlado) Valkovic, a retired professor of physics, is a fellow of the AmericanPhysical Society and Institute of Physics (London). He has authored 22 books (from TraceElements (Taylor & Francis, Ltd., 1975) to Radioactivity in the Environment (Elsevier, 1stEdition 2001, 2nd Edition, 2019)) and more than 400 scientific and technical papers in theresearch areas of nuclear physics and applications of nuclear techniques to trace elementanalysis in biology, medicine and environmental research. He has lifelong experience inthe study of nuclear reactions induced by 14 MeV neutrons. This research has been donethrough coordination and works on many national and international projects, includingUS–Croatia bilateral, NATO, IAEA, EU-FP5, EU-FP6 and EU-FP7 projects.He had worked as a professor of physics at Rice University, Houston, Texas; as a Headof Physics-Chemistry-Instrumentation Laboratory at IAEA, Vienna, Austria; and asLaboratory head and scientific advisor at the Ruđer Bošković Institute, Zagreb, Croatia.

• ContentsPreface...................................................................................................xiIntroduction....................................................................................... xiiiAuthor..................................................................................................xxi1 Chemical Elements Abundances2 Galaxies, Galactic Magnetic Fields and Cosmic Rays3 Galactic Chemical Evolution4 Living Matter5 Time and Place of the Origin of Life6 Multiverse Cosmological Models and Anthropic Principle7 Open Problems ・ Laboratory ExperimentsIndex................................................................................................... 389