Picture of Stanley Miller (Taken from Dr. Stanley Miller's Homepage)

Stanley Miller's Primative Earth Atmosphere Experiment

In 1952, Stanley L. Miller, working in the lab of Harold C. Urey at the University of Chicago, did the first experiment designed to clarify what chemical reactions actually occured on the primative earth. In his apparatus, Miller created an "ocean" of water, which he heated, forcing water vapor to circulate around the flask. At the top of this flask was an atmosphere the consisted of ammonia (NH3), methane (CH4), hydrogen (H2) and the circulating water vapor. After a week, the water vapor in the flask condensed and became deep red and turbid. During Miller's analysis of this experiment, he was able to identify a number of amino acids, which are the building block of life.

(Picture taken from http://biog-101-104.bio.cornell.edu/biog101_104/biog102/miller_expt.html)

This is the apparatus that Stanley Miller used in his experiment.