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Long Answer Questions · Q4

Q.Describe the Urey and Miller's experiment.

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Miller and Urey sparked a methane-ammonia-hydrogen-water-vapour mixture in a sealed apparatus and produced organic compounds like amino acids, supporting chemical evolution.

Step 1. Stanley L. Miller, working with his teacher Harold C. Urey, set out to test Oparin's chemical-evolution theory experimentally, by building a sealed glass spark-discharge apparatus that was first sterilised and evacuated.

Step 2. Into the main chamber they pumped methane, ammonia and hydrogen gases in the proportion 1:2:2, while a separate tube supplied water vapour to represent the primitive ocean's evaporation.

Step 3. Lightning was simulated using a continuous electric discharge — a carbon-arc spark fired between electrodes inside the chamber — while a heating mantle and a condenser reproduced the natural cycle of evaporation and precipitation.

Step 4. This gas mixture was exposed continuously to the electric spark for several days, allowing the gases to react with one another; the reacted products were then condensed and collected in a U-tube. …

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