Thermodynamics

The Origin of Life: is it written into physics?

AI is sorting through vast libraries of chemistry, telescopes are sniffing the air of far-off planets, and spacecraft are dropping capsules of asteroid dust into the desert. The headlines say we are closing in on how dead chemistry first became alive, and some go further: maybe life is not a fluke but a law, bound to appear wherever physics allows. Part of that is thrilling and true. But three very different achievements keep getting told as one story. The first, finding life's ingredients scattered across space, genuinely works. The second, the grand claim that thermodynamics makes life inevitable, has run far ahead of its evidence. And the third, the actual jump from chemistry to a living, evolving thing, has never once been made in a lab. A five-minute read, no chemistry needed.