Buddha's last breath may have been your first.

[Guest guest]

This short piece was done on National Public radio's " Morning

Edition " on the Ides of March this year in commemoration of Caeser's

death. But the thesis is of interest in other far ranging ways. A

good piece to cogitate on:

 

Health & Science

Commemorate Caesar: Take a Deep Breath!

by Robert Krulwich

 

Morning Edition,

March 15, 2006

 

Though you may not have noticed, today is the 2050th anniversary of

Julius Caesar's assassination.

 

Most of us have a vague sense of what happened that day. Caesar was,

of course, a great conqueror. He was very popular with the ordinary

folks in Rome, but not so popular with a small group of senators who

feared that at any moment he would make himself an absolute dictator.

 

 

The senators, including his friend Brutus ( " Et tu? " ), conspired,

invited him to the Senate, gathered round and stabbed him over and

over. Caesar, mortally wounded, exhaled and died.

 

And it's not like Caesar hadn't been warned. Soothsayers had told him

to " Beware the Ides Of March " -- " ides " meaning the middle of the

month. But he paid no heed.

 

That's what most people know.

 

The Chemistry Angle

 

Here's what chemistry students know: For some reason, Caesar's dying

breath, his last exhalation, has become a classic teaching tool in

high school and college. When Caesar exhaled, he released an enormous

number of " breath " molecules, mostly nitrogen and carbon dioxide.

It's a very, very big number says Dan Nocera, chemistry professor at

the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). By Nocera's

calculation: .05 x 6 x 10 to the 23rd.

 

 

" 10 to the 23rd " all by itself looks ridiculously large. It's 10

followed by 22 zeros:

 

100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

 

 

Over the years, a number of scholars have tried to figure out what

typically would happen to all those molecules. They figured some were

absorbed by plants, some by animals, some by water -- and a large

portion would float free and spread themselves all around the globe

in a pattern so predictable that (this is the fun part) if you take a

deep breath right now, at least one of the molecules entering your

lungs literally came from Caesar's last breath.

 

 

That's what they say.

 

 

If you look around the Internet, you will find professors who say we

take in three of Caesar's molecules per breath, or eight, or 10. It

all depends on your assumptions about the size of a breath, the size

of the atmosphere, the location of the breather (on a mountain, or at

sea level?)

 

 

To Commemorate Caesar's Demise...

 

But bottom line?

 

Even though these calculations apply to any breath exhaled long ago --

Shakespeare's, Cleopatra's, Lincoln's, your great-great-grandma's --

you may still want to take a moment today to share with Caesar. Just

breathe in and share his molecule.

 

posted by bob