Related papers: Origins of Life: A Problem for Physics
Life can be viewed as a localized chemical system that sits on, or in the basin of attraction of, a metastable dynamical attractor state that remains out of equilibrium with the environment. Such a view of life allows that new living states…
The thermodynamic arrow-of-time problem is thought to be resolved by the observation that our universe initially was---and still is---far from equilibrium. The psychological arrow-of-time problem is often attributed the same resolution, but…
A mathematical model of the natural origin of our universe is presented. The model is based only on well-established physics. No claim is made that this model uniquely represents exactly how the universe came about. But the viability of a…
The esteemed physicist Erwin Schroedinger, whose name is associated with the most notorious equation of quantum mechanics, also wrote a brief essay entitled 'What is Life?', asking: 'How can the events in space and time which take place…
We apply the theory of learning to physically renormalizable systems in an attempt to develop a theory of biological evolution, including the origin of life, as multilevel learning. We formulate seven fundamental principles of evolution…
Herein we consider various concepts of entropy as measures of the complexity of phenomena and in so doing encounter a fundamental problem in physics that affects how we understand the nature of reality. In essence the difficulty has to do…
At present, there is a great deal of confusion regarding complexity and its measures (reviews on complexity measures are found in, e.g. Lloyd, 2001 and Shalizi, 2006 and more references therein). Moreover, there is also confusion regarding…
Nature has found one method of organizing living matter, but maybe other options exist -- not yet discovered -- on how to create life. To study the life "as it could be" is the objective of an interdisciplinary field called Artificial Life…
Cosmoparticle physics offers the exciting challenge for the new Millenium to come to the true knowledge on the basic natural laws and on the way, they govern the creation and evolution of the Universe with all the forms of its present…
There has been on-going philosophical debate on whether artificial life models, also known as digital organisms, are truly alive. The main difficulty appears to be finding an encompassing and definite definition of life. By examining…
The question of "what is life?" has challenged scientists and philosophers for centuries, producing an array of definitions that reflect both the mystery of its emergence and the diversity of disciplinary perspectives brought to bear on the…
It is probably not a coincidence that two of the pioneers of thermodynamics, Helmholtz and Mayer, were physicians. Thermodynamics studies the transformations of energy, and such transformations ceaselessly take place in all living systems…
We advance a famous principle - causality principle - but under a new view. This principle is a principium automatically leading to most fundamental laws of the nature. It is the inner origin of variation, rules evolutionary processes of…
Explaining the origin of life requires us to explain how self-replication arises. To be specific, how can a self-replicating entity develop spontaneously from a chemical reaction system in which no reaction is self-replicating? Previously…
The Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) aims to telescopically constrain the frequency and abundance of biospheres in the solar neighborhood. Origin-of-life theories vary in their predictions for the environmental requirements and the…
The dramatic confrontation between new observations and theories of the early and recent universe makes cosmology one of the most rapidly advancing fields in the physical sciences. The universe is a unique laboratory in which to probe…
Astrobiology, the study of life as a planetary phenomenon, aims to understand the fundamental nature of life on earth and the possibility of life elsewhere. To achieve this goal, astrobiologists have initiated unprecedented communication…
Physics of Life research in the UK is proving to be transformative to scientific insight and translational impact, but challenges remain. Here I discuss its disruptive potential and the barriers to interdisciplinary research seen through…
The chiral puzzle of biological molecules is thought to be closely related to the origin of life and is still a mystery so far. Previously, we proposed a new model on the origin of life, Nebula-Relay hypothesis, which assumed that the life…
The Origins Space Telescope (Origins) is one of four science and technology definition studies selected by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in preparation of the 2020 Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal survey in the US.…