Life As No One Knows It
The Physics of Life's Emergence
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Little, Brown Book Group
Publishing:12th Aug '25
£10.99
This title is due to be published on 12th August, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
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.
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. She proposes a new paradigm for understanding what physics encompasses and what we recognize as life, inviting 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. Rigorous, accessible, and vital, Life As No-One Knows It celebrates the mystery of life and the explanatory power of physics.
'A fresh take on the age-old questions "Are we alone?" and "Where did we come from?"' American Scientist
'A virtuosos intellectual performance... full of wit, mischief and bursts of insolent brevity' Simon Ings, Daily Telegraph
'Provocative and intriguing'Wall Street Journal
Reading Life As No-One Knows It is like engaging in a mind-bending conversation about the biggest questions of all * Tim Urban, creator of Wait But Why *
With wit and clarity, Walker outlines a radical new approach to bridge the conceptual gap between non-life and life * Paul Davies, author of What's Eating the Universe *
A virtuoso intellectual performance ... full of wit, mischief and bursts of insolent brevity... Walker shows us that what we call 'life' is but an infinitesimal fraction of all the kinds of like that may arise out of any number of wholly unfamiliar chemistries -- Simon Ings * Daily Telegraph *
An honorable addition to a small genre that began with Noble Prize-winning physicist Erwin Schrodinger's What Is Life? ... Ingenious * Kirkus Reviews *
Bracingly original ... This has the potential to be a game changer * Publishers Weekly *
Provocative and intriguing * Wall Street Journal *
A fresh take on the age-old questions 'Are we alone?' and 'Where did we come from?' * American Scientist *
A masterfully crafted and engaging account of Assembly Theory. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in fundamental physics, the origins of life, and pursuing a better understanding of the structure underlying all of the universe's creations * Annaka Harris, author of Conscious *
ISBN: 9780349128252
Dimensions: 198mm x 126mm x 22mm
Weight: 41g
272 pages