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Dr. Sean Carroll is Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy — in effect, a joint appointment between physics and philosophy — at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and fractal faculty at[…]
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Join physicist Sean Carroll in a thought-provoking exploration of how life emerges in a universe governed by the second law of thermodynamics, which dictates an inevitable increase in disorder. This video delves into the intriguing contradiction between the universe’s natural progression towards chaos and the existence of complex life forms. Carroll introduces the concept of entropy and its role in the “heat death” of the universe, questioning how, against all odds, life could arise from such disorder.

Diving into the scientific debate on the origin of life, Carroll discusses the replication-first versus metabolism-first theories and the groundbreaking discovery of hydrothermal vents, which support life’s potential emergence from non-biological processes. This concise exploration highlights the significant strides being made in understanding life’s origins, bridging the gap between physics and biology, and offering a glimpse into one of science’s most captivating unsolved questions.


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