SO ENDS this contemplation of the origin of the elements. Is it just the way that the human mind works that makes a seemingly chaotic universe appear orderly, when we can arrange the elements in an exquisitely logical and orderly sequence called the Periodic Table, or is there a genuine order to that swirling universe? Or that we can take a burning dying star and infer such linear equations of elemental synthesis from a planetary body in collapse? An important but hard to answer question.