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Seventy years ago, Erwin Schrodinger posed a simple, yet profound, question: 'What is life?'. How could the very existence of such extraordinary chemical systems be understood? This problem has puzzled biologists and physical scientists both before, and ever since. Living things are hugely complex and have unique properties, such as self-maintenance and apparently purposeful behaviour which we do not see in inert matter. So how does chemistry give rise to biology? Did life begin with replicating molecules, and, if so, what could have led the first replicating molecules up such a path? Now, developments in the emerging field of 'systems chemistry' are unlocking the problem. Addy Pross shows how the different kind of stability that operates among replicating entities results in a tendency for certain chemical systems to become more complex and acquire the properties of life. Strikingly, he demonstrates that Darwinian evolution is the biological expression of a deeper and more fundamental chemical principle: the whole story from replicating molecules to complex life is one continuous coherent chemical process governed by a simple definable principle. The gulf between biology and the physical sciences is finally becoming bridged.
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1
What is life?: how chemistry becomes biology
2016, Oxford University Press
in English
- Second edition.
0198784791 9780198784791
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2
What Is Life?: How Chemistry Becomes Biology
2014, Oxford University Press
in English
0199687773 9780199687770
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3
What Is Life?: How Chemistry Becomes Biology
2012, Oxford University Press
in English
0191650889 9780191650888
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4
What Is Life?: How Chemistry Becomes Biology
2012, Oxford University Press
in English
1283597470 9781283597470
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Book Details
Edition Notes
"With a new epilogue"--Cover.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 201-205) and index.
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- Created July 19, 2019
- 9 revisions
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March 7, 2023 | Edited by MARC Bot | import existing book |
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