How long does it take to read What Is Life??
Addy Pross
What Is Life? by Addy Pross takes about 3 hours 58 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 3 hours 58 minutes
A weekend read
First published 2012. 216 pages, about 59,400 words.
8 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 6 hours 36 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 3 hours 58 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 2 hours 29 minutes |
The page count is the median across 4 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
Seventy years ago, Erwin Schrodinger posed a simple, yet profound, question: 'What is life?'. How could the very existence of such extraordinary chemical systems be understood? This problem has puzzled biologists and physical scientists both before, and ever since. Living things are hugely complex and have unique properties, such as self-maintenance and apparently purposeful behaviour which we do not see in inert matter. So how does chemistry give rise to biology? Did life begin with replicating molecules, and, if so, what could have led the first replicating molecules up such a path? Now, developments in the emerging field of 'systems chemistry' are unlocking the problem. Addy Pross shows how the different kind of stability that operates among replicating entities results in a tendency for certain chemical systems to become more complex and acquire the properties of life. Strikingly, he demonstrates that Darwinian evolution is the biological expression of a deeper and more fundamental chemical principle: the whole story from replicating molecules to complex life is one continuous coherent chemical process governed by a simple definable principle. The gulf between biology and the physical sciences is finally becoming bridged.
Subjects: Origin, Biology, Chemistry, Evolution of Life, Life (Biology), Philosophy
