Transition from Inert to Living Systems

Abstract

The transition from inert to living systems has long been a matter of high human fascination and interest due to its cultural significance. Progress in understanding this transition has occurred at a pace related to that of developments in science and technology. The last two centuries shed increasingly intense light on the “evolution” steps that connect the birth of subatomic particles at the beginning of the Universe to intelligent, earthly life. Nevertheless, the complexity of the transformations that constitute each of the steps, of which the origin of life is one, and the fact that the transformations took place long ago make it extremely challenging to elucidate the origin of life on Earth. The human efforts directed to understanding the transition from inert to living systems as we know them include top-down and bottom-up approaches and, more recently, take into account the fact that living systems may take different, unfamiliar forms here on Earth, may be artificially crated, or may appear elsewhere in the Universe in conditions different than those on Earth. Hence, progress in the study of the origin of life is fostered by a broad range of scientific and engineering disciplines that aim to provide complementary knowledge about the emergence of living systems that converges into a unique picture.