Life as No One Knows It, Sara Imari Walker
Life as No One Knows It, Sara Imari Walker
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Life as No One Knows It
The Physics of Life's Emergence

Author: Sara Imari Walker

Narrator: Sara Imari Walker

Unabridged: 7 hr 20 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 08/06/2024

Synopsis

An intriguing new scientific theory that explains what life is and how it emerges.

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. None help us understand how life originates or the full range of possibilities for what life on other planets might look like.

In Life as No One Knows It, 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. This is an urgent issue for efforts to make life from scratch in laboratories here on Earth and missions searching for life on other planets.

Walker proposes a new paradigm for understanding what physics encompasses and what we recognize as life. She invites 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. The book culminates with the bold proposal of a new theory for identifying and classifying life, one that applies not just to biological life on Earth but to any instance of life in the universe. Rigorous, accessible, and vital, Life as No One Knows It celebrates the mystery of life and the explanatory power of physics.

About The Author

Sara Imari Walker is an astrobiologist and theoretical physicist interested in the origin of life and discovering alien life on other worlds. She is deputy director of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science and a professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University. She is also a fellow of the Berggruen Institute and a member of the external faculty at the Santa Fe Institute. She is the recipient of the Stanley L. Miller Early-Career Award for her research on the origin of life, and her research team at ASU is internationally regarded as being among the leading labs aiming to build a fundamental theory for understanding what life is. Her research has been featured in Scientific American, Quanta Magazine, and a variety of other international outlets.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Brahm on October 09, 2024

What is life? This book explores some cool new ideas. Fast, succinct, enjoyable, thought-provoking. Thanks for the rec DP!......more

Goodreads review by Christian on December 07, 2024

I was profoundly disappointed in this book; a result partly borne of my own personal excitement for the book after being introduced to assembly theory on the Santa Fe Institute’s podcast series. I finished this believing that podcast series is immensely better at explaining assembly theory, and also......more

Goodreads review by Dayton on July 17, 2024

Walker attempts to apply assembly theory to better understand what life is, how it may have originated, and what it might look like on other planets. What is assembly theory? To grossly simplify (I am not at all an expert), it is a relatively new (and in my understanding somewhat controversial, thou......more

Goodreads review by eve on October 05, 2024

Quite a ride, but that's theoretical physics and astrobiology for you. While being an interesting introduction to assemblage theory in this book enthusiasm and hype seem do more of the heavy lifting than plausibility. The praise of Lee Cronin's work gets a bit tired as does the constant name-droppin......more

Goodreads review by Andrew on November 15, 2024

Sara Walker very quickly rose to the top of my life-science/physics scientist list after listening to her on the Lex Friedman podcast. I was elated to find out she just published this book and it was worth every page of reading. She dives much deeper into assembly theory than in surface-level interv......more

Quotes

"Provocative and intriguing." —The Wall Street Journal

"A fresh take on the age-old questions 'Are we alone?' and 'Where did we come from?'" —American Scientist

"Bracingly original. . . . This has the potential to be a game changer." —Publishers Weekly (★starred review★)

"An honorable addition to a small genre that began with Noble Prize–winning physicist Erwin Schrodinger’s What Is Life? . . . Ingenious." —Kirkus Reviews

"This is vital information.” —Los Angeles Times

"A virtuoso intellectual performance. . . full of wit, mischief and bursts of insolent brevity." —The Telegraph (UK)

“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 and The Demon in the Machine
 
“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
 
“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

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