Abstract
On the basis of the thermodynamic argument of the characteristic feature distinguishing the living world from the nonliving, it is postulated that the radiation from the sun created living organisms on the earth and has been their constant driving force. In view of the fact that the basic biomolecules have chemical energies of several or more electron volts, significantly higher than the average energy of a photon from the sun, we propose a mechanism of multistep photoexcitations of inorganic material for the photosynthesis of these metastable molecules which would not exist at ambient temperature. The preference of the photoexcitation against the radiative and nonradiative de-excitation is ascribed to the suppression of the latter by rapid and large relaxations (reactions) in intermediate states. An experiment to confirm the mechanism is proposed in which geological time is reduced to an accessible one.
