My submission text for herox.com/evolution2.0 Prize?
I believe that my solution ” meets a significant fraction of this specification”, as it is noted in #12 “Partial Solutions to the Problem”, but still can not state it for sure before the experiment.
(italic inserts minimally take into account Evo2's review comments)
1. Life opposes entropy, or the second thermodynamics law, which requires an increase in entropy in a closed system. Over time, living systems improve and become more complex, in contrast to closed systems that strive for homogeneity and simplification. Being isolated from the environment, any living being rather quickly (in comparison with its usual life duration) dies (without metabolism and energy inflow) in full accordance with the second law of thermodynamics.
2. In the biological evolution course life has created multistage and branched closed food chains linked into a single network. In it, the more complex creatures feed on the simpler ones, so that after death they turn into food for everyone else: predators and prey, parasites, and their hosts use each other in the struggle for resources and their offsprings' maximum distribution - that results in a quasi-equilibrium balance. They all have a common ancestor, so we can define life as (a complex enough open systems' property), a physicochemical cycles' network that tends to expand and develop, and is linked by a single genetic code.
3. It is impossible to just pick or guess this code. Just imagine how a Martian can "guess" the first transistor design, poking around in the millions of current ones that make up some mobile phone processor - not much larger than the first Bell Lab transistor. The living systems development and complication (social ones can also be referred to as “living”) is not accidental but obeys some law (laws) - just as the closed ones' degradation is described by the thermodynamics second law.
4. Both the closed systems degradation and the living systems evolution are irreversible. In both cases, we are talking about the huge number of particle interactions, only in the first the system dissipates the energy it has into the environment, and in the second it receives more than it scatters. This energy is used to pay for local decreases in entropy during the more complex structures' formation (see below). One may call it "the evolution pressure" or God's providence, but when pumped with energy, an open system is capable of creating new structures and self-complication (be it a laser or the installation interior in Miller's experiment [1] ), stopping it either when resources are exhausted or when its complexity limit is reached.
This limit obviously depends on both the composition and size of the system and the energy flux through it.
5. In an open nonequilibrium system, the usual probabilistic approach in many respects loses its meaning, considering many seemingly similar events as equiprobable: the action of attractors in the phase space of the system changes the probability distribution. Different (and even closely lying) phase trajectories become not equally probable. Figuratively speaking, the holes for a roulette ball in an open nonequilibrium system cease to be the same in size and depth. The tornado [2] walks not around the junkyard, but (with the system parameters falling into a certain phase space area ) rotates the generator turbine that feeds something like a well-equipped robotic assembly shop.
Only experiment can clarify the mechanism by which the physics and chemistry laws govern the probabilities distribution among phase trajectories. Benard cells [3] (see picture below) are formed by thermal expansion, viscosity, and gravity, a more complicated laws' combination adds up to some “evolutionary pressure”. And it is time to begin this phenomenon experimentally studying.
The three phenomena interaction - gravity, thermal expansion, and viscosity allows the latter not to suppress the movement as usual, but on the contrary - to maintain the flows' movement in neighboring cells (coordinated, not arbitrary one!).
6. The closed flows' existence probability in an equilibrium viscous liquid layer (especially being “packed” into regular hexagons), is apparently less (because it is simply identically 0 - there is no energy source for this! :) than the DNA correct assembling probability calculated by the ID proponents. But in a layer with appropriate heat flux and temperature gradient, their occurrence and existence are inevitable.
7. The medium adaptive behavior under the optical radiation pumping action allows one to observe the wavefront (or phase) conjugation of the wave, which "traces" in real-time and compensates for phase distortions in laser amplifiers or in a turbulent atmosphere [4]. These are rare examples of incredible (from the everyday "common sense" point of view) ordinary substances' behavior, subjected to an energy flow, where we are able to write some equations describing the physics of what is happening.
8. Figure below illustrates a thought experiment from the “Svityk”’s (let us call it so for short [10]– this Ukrainian word means a small world) first publication:
Let's imagine that we have a broadband active medium with a very intricate system of competing potential laser transitions, so that there is a whole three-dimensional region of pump wavelengths Δλp, generation wavelengths Δλg and the output mirror reflection coefficients ΔR which requires research [10].
Instead of sequential or selective sort out of combinations by the specific researcher choice (this way is still used in origin of life experiments) the following path can be represented, using the properties of the system under study. Imagine that we were able to provide the active medium with wide-aperture and an output mirror - with reflectance coefficient variable in one of the coordinates through ΔR, and on the other coordinate — over Δλg. This will give the only variable in the Δλp, so by varying we can count to "catch" the generation that “finds itself” in the area of the output mirror, which corresponds to the optimal combination of λg and R. Generalizing this reasoning to other nonequilibrium systems (for example, of devices for monitoring Benard cells type), it can be assumed that a sufficient openness of the system after excess by the energy flow through it certain threshold "makes" it herself finding phase trajectory resulting in a new level of ordering.
This is one more example of an (pumped) open system self-adjustment.
9. Physics has already tried to use to clarify the essence and God's place at least since the Copernicus and Galileo time. The momentum, energy, and angular momentum conservation laws are the equivalence consequences of all points of the coordinates axes, time and directions - thereby leaving neither God nor his traces' space place.
10. An attempt to find a stationary ether, or some distinguished reference frame, in which Maxwell's equations would look the simplest (“in which He wrote them”) - the Michelson-Morley experiment, showed the absence of such an “absolute” system. Therefore, people even had to come to terms with the length scales contraction and the clocks' slowing down in moving systems (as a “punishment” for curiosity :). Yes, this is counter-intuitive and does not correspond to all everyday experience - but you have to get along with it.
11. It's just that God created this world “with gloves”, leaving physicists no trace - except, it would seem, life. But even here, it seems, we cannot find them explicitly. God is in the relationship between fundamental constants. They are such that attractors and "evolutionary pressure" are created in sufficiently complex open systems towards the structures' complication, which significantly increases some phase trajectories' probabilities in comparison with others, for us - equally probable. If we do not see connections, this does not mean their absence.
12. The light speed constancy in vacuum postulation made it possible to use the relativity theory consequences in, for example, nuclear power plants. Postulating the existence of "evolutionary pressure" or God's allowing us to study him experimentally as a complex open systems' development law [7] will allow us to understand the life origin and decipher the Natural Code.
Let's try to formulate the "evolutionary pressure" law or translate the book of Creation into the physics language, with the following life definition in mind:
Life is a growth thriving physico-chemical cycles' network with common genetic code obtained, or, in other words, physico-chemical cycles' self-developing network bound by common genetic code.
13. The basis for it (the required law) can be the "Prigogine-Hayek law" in the form of a phrase that accumulates the two wonderful books' content of these scientists - "Order from Chaos" [5] and "Fatal Conceit" [6], respectively:
There is a law forcing open enough systems with large gradients in the parameters distributions and many freedom degrees to generate more and more complex structures that ensure the further reproduction of both the original and new gradients, thereby ensuring self-development in such systems.
“Enough” openness, “large” and “many” imply the exceeding some (so far unknown to us) threshold values that ensure the system removal in phase space far enough from the equilibrium state to form the sufficiently diverse network of said physicochemical cycles.
14. Since cyclicity is inherent in all living things, it is also necessary for the life emergence process and its development before the genetic code generation phase. This is why the proposed experiment should include the different physical nature energy flow's impact on the studied system of different periods (on Earth, it was warming/ cooling, day/night, drying/wetting, solar activity cycles [8], for example). Gradients in the system parameters distribution create a continuously distributed mini-chemical reactors set, and the temporal energy flows modulation also introduces a temporal variety in the reaction conditions, creating the possibility of “resonances” in the form of selectively amplifying individual cycles (successfully “adjusted” to the corresponding energy type input period ). In approximately the same way, chirality arose - due to the fields' anisotropy in some space area, the “left” cycles performance exceeded that of the “right” ones, displacing the latter from further evolution.
15. Hypothesis: life and the natural code arose as a manifestation of the law connecting physics and chemistry in such a way that a sufficiently diverse system with many freedom degrees and gradients in the parameters' distribution under various
periodic effects of different nature energy flows is forced to generate more and more complex structures in the dispersion energy (coming from outside) process.
16. Various types of Miller's [1] experiments for several months produce several amino acids, and in the limit - resin. The Earth developed the biosphere in a few giga-years. Our task is to accelerate as much as possible the self-development processes in a (limited size and mass) system, up to the replicator cycles' receipt and, accordingly, a genetic code.
Thus, in a similar way to how parasitic lasing in a laser with a sufficient amplification level in the active medium “itself” finds a shiny surface area to act as a mirror (and how plants find where to grow towards the light), in a rather complex and different-phase system subject to broadband energy ducts with a flux density above a certain threshold and at different intervals, replicators should appear, natural selection should begin to work, and a natural (genetic) code may be generated.
17. It is unlikely that it will be identical to ours, polished by millions of years' development. But we have a chance to understand its construction and development principles. The code is improved under the mentioned law influence with the same inexorability with which the second thermodynamics law makes entropy grow in a closed system.
Thus, to generate the natural code, an extended Miller's experiment version in a (pre-sterilized) installation is proposed (by adding at least dry/wet cycles with freshwater, minerals surfaces such as sulfides and oxides, foaming, etc.) shown on the image.
18. D. Deamer asked recently “Salty seawater or a warm little pond: Where did life begin?” (Deamer, D. (2020). Salty seawater or a warm little pond: Where did life begin? Academia Letters, Article 105. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL105.)
And why, for example, does replication not appear in freshwater, and encapsulation in the form of protocells - in saltwater? And, having united somewhere on their border - start spreading everywhere? The proposed experiment will provide an opportunity to answer these and other questions.
19. Ideally, a minimum of 2-3 such installations with different filling and/or different programs for controlling the energy and substances supply will make it possible to clarify the various factors' comparative influence on the molecules' growth rate and their maximum achievable complexity (according to the maximum molar mass reached in the "broth", for example). At the same time, all installations can use the same spectrometric system for data uniformity and experiment cost reduction.
20. Life is a holistic property of a large "planet Earth" system, and it is precisely in the form of a systemic property that one should study its occurrence. This in many respects contradicts all the previous (bio)chemical research practice by as thoroughly as possible cleaning the used substances and stabilizing the experimental conditions. A rare example of work in which the "contaminants" presence in the previous reactions' remnants form made it possible to find a way to synthesize activated pyrimidine ribonucleotides [9] we may consider as the first experimental confirmation of such a "holistic" approach to the abiogenetic experiment. (Reviewer corrected - NOT the first)
21. " Drawing on metaphors from the bootstrapping of a simple computer operating system, we show how protocells cycling through wet, dry, and moist phases will subject polymers to combinatorial selection and draw structural and catalytic functions out of initially random sequences..." say B. Damer and D. Deamer [14], moving in this very direction. A "holistic" experiment with a "micro-planet" will sooner or later be performed.
22. The lack of "holistic" experimental and theoretical data on really complex systems prevents us from answering the following very interesting and important questions. What are the minimum dimensions, composition, and the freedom degrees number that can create regularly reproduced and developing (more complex) structures (replicators)? What range of parameters and their gradients is necessary and sufficient for this? In other words, what are the quantitative relationships separating the region of the parameter space of the system, suitable for life emergence and existence (zone 1) from the rest one (zone 0)? What is the constant (or are the constants) determining these boundaries (like h and c in hν >> kT or v << c)? I have a lot of doubts that we can decipher natural code without answering these questions.
Experiment Scheme Proposed: "svityk" micro-planet
I believe that for enhanced abiogenesis experiment it is necessary to reproduce as much as possible the widest feasible set of physical conditions for a variety of chemical reactions and physical processes (including foaming, freezing and drying/wetting with fresh and seawater, electrical discharges in the air and underwater, periodical illumination with light from UV to IR) in the gas and liquid phases and on the various minerals' surfaces in some confined and isolated volume - namely make a "micro-planet" [10].
To ensure the required water and "wind" flows with any contamination possibility exclusion, I believe it is necessary to use convection, as well as for air-drying in a "dryer" DR (see Fig. 1). The circulation of the liquid and gas phases can be easily realized by the heater-refrigerator pairs in each of the phases (cooler 2 - heater 2 and cooler 1- heater 3 in the figure below, respectively).
A pair cooler 2 - heater 2 can be omitted if the average cooling power of freezer 1 (ice generator for ‘Terra firma 3” ) will be both sufficient for continuous ice existence and equal to average heating power produced by foam generator cycles.
The ratio of the duration of the various cycles (for example, “day”/ discharges/foaming) must represent significantly not multiples to provide the widest possible range of overlays like 5:17:43, and minimum half-cycle duration should exceed the process relaxation time in the system at least several times.
In the diagram of Fig. 1, sensors of temperature, pressure, and concentration of atmospheric gases, as well as valves for their replenishment, and gateway for an "ocean" water sampling are not shown for simplicity.
To maximize the information obtained in the experiment, I propose to use simultaneously at least two or three (geometrically identical) “svityks”, controlled by one computer and using the same spectrometers system, sequentially (alternately) connecting with optical fibers to each of the installations for regular measurements. At the same time, they should differ in pairs, for example, by the composition of the atmosphere (with the same time schedule for switching on effects - light, geyser, foam, etc.) or, on the contrary, by time schedules (with the same atmosphere in both). In all cases, more rapid growth of the spectra richness and that of the maximum size of nanoparticles in a broth along with the final their values, as well as the richness of the composition of the final broth, should mean the shift from zone 0 to zone 1.
I hope that the information obtained in such experiments, especially the final broth compositions, will give a clearer idea not only of prebiotic chemistry but also of the necessary (for further progress to zone 1) changes in the following experiments.
It can be assumed that a sufficiently long installation operation (as in the Miller experiment) will lead to the "ocean" composition stabilization and its spectra, as well as will stop the growth of molecules (the latter will be registered by correlation spectroscopy).
The chirality of biomolecules may have been caused by the anisotropy of the electromagnetic fields at the place where they were originated, so I consider it not superfluous to include in svityk sources of constant crossed electric and magnetic fields, the mutual orientation of which with respect to flows of liquid and "wind" should not be changed during the experiment. And who can guarantee that the chirality of biomolecules is not related to the mutual orientation of these fields relative to the direction of rotation of the circular fluid flow in the "reactor" that gave rise to them (Fig. 2)?
Performing dehumidification and wetting minerals surface with both fresh and «oceanic» water in conditions of complete and reliable the experimental setup volume isolation from an external environment is significantly more complicated than “winds” and “ sea currents” generation. More of that I believe that the seemingly apparent impossibility of drying a portion of the surface inside a Miller-type installation stopped researchers on this path.
I offer the "dryer" (DR) design in the form of a semi-insulated volume with a special heater-refrigerator pair (4-1 on Fig. 1) of approximately equal power. In this case, the cooler (it acts as a "cloud") temperature should be kept below the dew point, but above zero by Celsius. This will ensure the gradual filling of the rain generator (RG) capacity with condensed fresh water.
Exceeding this water critical level in the tank causes "rain" to flow due to hydrostatic pressure and empties the vessel for further cycle repetition. In this way RG is regularly draining it’s tank to ice, dry and wet mineral surfaces of “Terra firma 3”, “Terra firma 1” and “Terra firma 2” at figure 1 respectively). This reservoir will be emptied after reaching the level shown in Figure 1 and later will be filled again with condensate collected.
It is necessary to have in the "dryer" a certain (limited) free surface of water that communicates with the "ocean" both for foam and "oceanic" water penetration into the "dryer" and for removing the washings from it to the "ocean".
Estimations and details
Quantitative estimates for the relationship between the rain generator cooler power and the free surface area of the water in the dryer, as well as for some characteristic relaxation times, can be found on my website https://abiogenesis.mria.top/ .
Since the dryer complex will greatly weaken the "sun" light in it, it will need a separate light source, designated by “DR Sun” in Figure 1.
So the proposed experimental setup must include at least the "ocean" with a sufficient amount of seawater, "Terra firma" as an island or islands, in addition to the "shores" of "the ocean" with relief, providing space for "lakes" and "shoals" with minerals variety coating, including, of course, sulfides of iron, zinc and other prospective catalysts and photovoltaic substrates, as well as the "dark rooms” both in air and underwater as well as different kinds of clays [15].
During the experiment, any gas (or gases) concentration in the atmosphere may begin to decrease because of its consumption in irreversible reactions. To maintain the initial concentration, this gas (or gases) influx to the air composition will be required. This circumstance can be used to introduce another gradient into the system – pH one. It will also allow investigating the hydrothermal sources' role in the life emergence by simulating these “smokers” in the porous nozzles form made of an appropriate mineral, placed at the gas supply pipe ends and placed into one of the underwater heaters (2 at Figure 1).
The anisotropic shape and orientation, as well as also anisotropic placement of the latters (as well as the supplementary cooler 2) will allow water circulation around the DR island in one direction (in Figure 2 - counter-clockwise). In the same figure, the pH gradients are also shown by color changes when the alkaline and acid "smokers" are simultaneously switched on.
In the meantime, the theory of really complex systems do not even start to be created: there are no clear definitions and thresholds of complexity and that of creating new structures, so we have to handle with rather qualitative considerations. However, for the life origin experiment, there is one exception: in the development of the installation, we must focus on the average flow of energy through the system of not less than 340W/m2 order - the value of the solar constant. Thus, we can start with the fact that the total maximum power of both "suns" should be about 340 W per square meter of the installation horizontal surface, i.e. for example, for a svityk's "bottom" area of 0.25 square meters - 85W.
Then, in such a system, "penetrated" by gradients and mixing there are many places with different conditions combinations for the reactions variety occurrence and for their products spreads all over the limited installation volume. This volume limitation in our "Earth model" by eliminating dilution and increasing gradients gives hope for the timeline "compression" for several (5-7? – of course linear estimations cannot be correct in this sufficiently nonlinear case) orders, as well as a decrease in daytime period and annual cycles, for example, to minutes and hours (2-3 orders of magnitude), which in total can give "transformation" or "compression" to the required 7-10 orders to come from 2-3 billion years to acceptable months or years.
After fixing a factors combination, that is giving new structures steady growth (by the way, it would be better to start this kind of experiments with an anaerobic atmosphere to prevent the accidental growing competing for our life form, which our one would not be able to "digest"), we can go to the elucidation of the role of each of them (simply by “turning off” appropriate cycle or interaction), and only after this we can try to start to write the equations.
So, I propose to create and continuously test in parallel 2-3 geometrically identical "svityks" with different atmospheres and/or cycling impacts programs (lighting, electric discharges, "rains", foaming, etc.). Change rate and the resulting structures complexity comparison will be made by periodically connecting each of the units to a common laser spectrometric system by richness simile of the absorption, luminescence and scatterings spectra for the liquid phase and by the size and growth rate of nano-particles (big biomolecules), as well as by chemical composition analysis of the resulting "broth".
Yes, I cannot yet say how the work to reduce the structural entropy [16] will be made at least because, unlike Benard cells (where only three forces are involved and we can write the corresponding differential equations), in abiogenesis more than a dozen reactions can be operated in three environments with dozens of different boundary conditions. Even in the Benard cells, it is not possible to clearly point out a “structuring law”, because it manifests itself in the coordinated interaction form of viscosity, gravity, and thermal expansion forces, that "cooperate" in the energy flow transfer. Sooner or later we will have to admit that the matter is "boring" to digest in a fairly complex system supercritical energy flows (and/or information) without the new structures' formation (examples of which we ourselves are).
Patenting and other possible monetization
a) It should be noted that the figures 1-2 above shows the original, the easiest to understand and explain the installation diagram. The real one, suitable for patenting, will be noticeably different due to much more production and maintenance ease and reliability. Already developed changes in the mentioned direction (ready for discussion after signing the NDA) as well as, for example, ensuring the circulation of the "ocean" around the "dry room" in a preselected direction (Fig. 2) without a mechanical motor inside the sterilized volume are quite sufficient for patentability the proposed solution. In general, as my sufficient experience in dealing with state patent examination shows (see photo below), the easiest way to go through Patent Office is just this solution kind - for problems that simply no one has ever substantiated or posed. The sales market is huge - pharmaceutical and biotech companies, universities. The demand for installations may appear after the first publications confirming the hypothesis in experiments. They may not be much more complicated than Miller's experiment (the mineral surfaces addition at the interface between the liquid and gas phases, their wetting with fresh water, and the “energy pumping” cyclicity). That is, monetization can begin even BEFORE receiving the code.
b) The proposed experiment is telegenic enough (periodic discharges, "rain", geyser, "sun", switching the streaming broadcast from one installation to another to compare the processes development) to attract many viewers to the corresponding YouTube channel (especially if the first experiment is successful ). Evo2 sponsors will be able to place both their own ads and paid ones there. It is a pity that various religious movements are unlikely to want to consecrate different installations to participate in a kind of competition for their prays power ... :)
c) The God (acting “by the hand of improbability,” that is, almost literally working miracles through the rarest circumstances' coincidences production) “dissolved in physical laws” idea, is able to inspire Hollywood producer or screenwriter to a fairly lucrative film or TV series. An almost finished script - the bio of Perry Marshall with Evo2-Prize + for example "2nd layer". Something like "Forest Gump", but more shrewd and gradually revealing "destiny hand". If we do not see connections, this does not mean their absence. This is presented in the artistic form in Appendix 2.
Conclusion
The proposed solution is only partial, indicating the movement direction towards obtaining a natural code. I believe that the code can be deciphered by examining regularly taken svityk’s "broth" samples.
REFERENCES
1. S. L. Miller, "Production of Amino Acids Under Possible Primitive Earth Conditions" . Science 117 (3046), pp. 528–9, 1953
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkyard_tornado
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayleigh%E2%80%93B%C3%A9nard_convection
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_conjugation
5. I. Prigogine, I. Stengers, Order Out of Chaos, Bantam, 1984
6. "The Fatal Conceit", The Univ. of Chicago Press. 1991
7. A.Lazarenko, General Theory of Everything :), http://ukraine.exrus.eu/en/19.php, 2016
8. A.L. Tscijevsky, Physical factors of the historical process http://cyclesresearchinstitute.org/pdf/cycles-history/chizhevsky1.pdf
9. Matthew W. Powner, Béatrice Gerland, John D. Sutherland, Synthesis of activated pyrimidine ribonucleotides in prebiotically plausible conditions Vol 459 | 14 May 2009 | doi:10.1038/nature 08013
10. Lazarenko, A. G., Andreev, A. N., & Kanaev, A. V. (2016). Origin of life experiment enlightened by laser. 2016 IEEE 7th International Conference on Advanced Optoelectronics and Lasers (CAOL). doi:10.1109/caol.2016.7851384
11. Evaporation from a Water Surface , - https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/evaporation-water-surface-d_690.html
12. Moisture Holding Capacity of Air -https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/moisture-holding-capacity-air-d_281.html
13. Convective Air Flow from a Single Heat Source,- https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/convective-heat-source-d_1007.html
14. Damer, B., & Deamer, D. (2019). The Hot Spring Hypothesis for an Origin of Life. Astrobiology. doi:10.1089/ast.2019.2045
Appendix 1
In any small town, there is a philosopher or two who are ready to make humanity happy with their own "General Theory of Everything." The global nature of the discussion subject requires from the author some evidence of sufficient education and sober creativity, i.e. the fact that he is not just crazy (but with references :).
a) Above was a photo of "author certificates" for inventions he received "in battles" with the USSR's Institute of State Patent Expertize. Most, alas, are unnamed due to Soviet secrecy.
Between them (all pictures are clickable):
and and
b) Also, not everyone has a Soviet analog of a Ph.D. diploma in physics and mathematics from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT)
c) More old one - diploma with distinction(=С ОТЛИЧИЕМ) from the same MIPT, Department of Physical and Quantum Electronics:
with all (but three "well"=хорошо) marks "excellent"=отлично:
Appendix 2.
Connection
written by Daniil Kharms (1905-1941)
Philosopher!
1. I am writing to you in response to your letter that you are going to write to me in response to my letter that I wrote to you.
2. A violinist bought himself a magnet and took it home. On the way, hooligans attacked the violinist and knocked off his hat. The wind picked up the hat and carried it down the street.
3. The violinist put the magnet on the ground and ran for the hat. The hat fell into a puddle of nitric acid and decayed there.
4. And the hooligans, meanwhile, grabbed the magnet and disappeared.
5. The violinist returned home without his coat and cap, because the cap had decayed in nitric acid, and the violinist, upset by the loss of his cap, forgot his coat in the tram.
6. The conductor of that tram took the coat to the flea market and exchanged it for sour cream, cereals, and tomatoes.
7. The conductor's father-in-law ate too many tomatoes and died. The conductor's father-in-law's corpse was placed in the mortuary room, but then they confused it and instead of the conductor's father-in-law they buried some old woman.
8. On the old woman's grave they put a white pillar with the inscription: "Anton Sergeevich Kondratyev".
9. After eleven years, worms exuded this pillar, and it fell. And the cemetery watchman sawed this post into four parts and burned it in his stove. And the cemetery watchman's wife cooked cauliflower soup on this fire.
10. But when the soup was ready, a fly fell from the wall right into the pot with this soup. The soup was given to beggar Timothy.
11. Beggar Timothy ate some soup and told beggar Nikolai about the cemetery watchman's kindness.
12. The next day, beggar Nikolai came to the cemetery watchman and began to beg. But the cemetery watchman gave Nicholas nothing and drove him away.
13. Beggar Nikolay got very angry and set fire to the cemetery watchman's house
14. The fire spread from the house to the church, and the church burned down.
15. There was a long investigation, but it was not possible to establish the fire cause.
16. In the place where the church was, a club was built and on the club opening day a concert was given, at which a violinist performed, who fourteen years ago had lost his coat.
17. And among the listeners sat the son of one of those hooligans who fourteen years ago knocked the cap off this violinist.
18. After the concert they went home on the same tram. But on the tram that followed them, the driver was the same conductor who once sold the violinist's coat at a flea market.
19. And now they are driving through the city late in the evening: in front is a violinist and a bully's son, and behind them a carriage driver, a former conductor.
20. They go and do not know what is the connection between them, and do not know until their death.