Life as No One Knows It: The Physics of Life's Emergence (Unabridged)
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4.4 • 17 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
An intriguing new scientific theory that explains what life is and how it emerges.
What is life? This is among the most difficult open problems in science, right up there with the nature of consciousness and the existence of matter. All the definitions we have fall short. None help us understand how life originates or the full range of possibilities for what life on other planets might look like.
In Life as No One Knows It, physicist and astrobiologist Sara Imari Walker argues that solving the origin of life requires radical new thinking and an experimentally testable theory for what life is. This is an urgent issue for efforts to make life from scratch in laboratories here on Earth and missions searching for life on other planets.
Walker proposes a new paradigm for understanding what physics encompasses and what we recognize as life. She invites us into a world of maverick scientists working without a map, seeking not just answers but better ways to formulate the biggest questions we have about the universe. The book culminates with the bold proposal of a new theory for identifying and classifying life, one that applies not just to biological life on Earth but to any instance of life in the universe. Rigorous, accessible, and vital, Life as No One Knows It celebrates the mystery of life and the explanatory power of physics.
Customer Reviews
Richly Interdisciplinary and Thought Provoking
This book is a beautiful intersection of physics, chemistry, biology, and computer science. Read by the author, which is always appreciated, this book exposes the ambiguity in current notions and definitions of life and how the boundary between the biotic and abiotic is fuzzy at best. An essential pillar of this book is that any claims of discovering new life or exploring the boundary between the living and non-living must be grounded in experimental evidence. So, while this book does have abstract ideas, many of which are worthy of perspective shifting capabilities, everything is solidly grounded in research and experimental evidence. As a mathematician, I really appreciated the author’s attention to the importance of definitions and how important they are, even if they are challenging to refine and make most suitable. A book that speaks to the next great scientific frontier: exploring the boundary between abiotic and biotic. Can we animate matter? Is all matter capable of memory? Very deep questions are contained herein.