Editing Primordial soup (section)

{{Short description|Theoretical conditions under which life on earth might have begun}}
'''Primordial soup''', also known as '''prebiotic soup''' and '''Haldane soup''', is the hypothetical set of conditions present on the [[Earth]] around 3.7 to 4.0 billion years ago. It is an aspect of the '''heterotrophic theory''' (also known as the '''Oparin–Haldane hypothesis''') concerning the [[Origin of Life|origin of life]], first proposed by [[Alexander Oparin]] in 1924, and [[J. B. S. Haldane]] in 1929.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://breadtagsagas.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/AI-Oparin-The-Origin-of-Life.pdf|title=The Origin of Life|last=Oparin|first=Alexander|access-date=2018-10-24|archive-date=2018-08-22|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180822014725/http://breadtagsagas.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/AI-Oparin-The-Origin-of-Life.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=http://www.uv.es/~orilife/textos/Haldane.pdf|title=The Origin of Life|last=Haldane|first=John B. S.|access-date=2018-10-24|archive-date=2003-09-27|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030927095824/http://www.uv.es/~orilife/textos/Haldane.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>

As formulated by Oparin, in the primitive Earth's surface layers, [[carbon]], [[hydrogen]], [[water]] vapour, and [[ammonia]] reacted to form the first [[organic compound]]s. The concept of a primordial soup gained credence in 1953 when the "[[Miller experiment|Miller–Urey experiment]]" used a highly reduced mixture of gases—[[methane]], ammonia and hydrogen—to form basic organic monomers, such as [[amino acid]]s.<ref name=Miller53>{{cite journal |last=Miller |first=Stanley L. |year=1953 |title=A Production of Amino Acids Under Possible Primitive Earth Conditions|journal=Science |volume=117 |pages=528–9 |doi=10.1126/science.117.3046.528 |pmid=13056598 |issue=3046 |bibcode = 1953Sci...117..528M |s2cid=38897285 }}</ref>