What far-from-equilibrium thermodynamics has to say about the emergence of life
Nov 6, 2017
2:30PM to 3:30PM
Date/Time
Date(s) - 06/11/2017
2:30 pm - 3:30 pm
Dr. Elbert Branscomb – University of Illinois
There is a current debate about whether the emergence of life on Earth occurred on land, e.g. in “warm little ponds”, or in the sea — in particular at sites on the sea floor where geophysically-driven alkaline hydrothermal effluents were venting into the ocean. Importantly, this is not just a question of location or of chemistry. It much more reflects a fundamental disagreement regarding the essential properties of the ‘living state of matter’, and about what must be true to have that state arise spontaneously from inanimate matter. The turning issue, I will argue, is the connection between life and states of thermodynamic disequilibria: how and why such states are generated and used by life; whether a living system’s most essential and distinguishing property is that it is both in a state of extreme disequilibrium and in the business of creating one; and whether the abiotic generation of certain specific and appropriately contained disequilibria was the enabling and prerequisite event in launching life on its journey from lifeless matter to the “tangled bank”.