How Do You Say “Life” in Physics?

Jeremy England is concerned about words—about what they mean, about the universes they contain. He avoids ones like “consciousness” and “information”; too loaded, he says. His caution is understandable. The 34-year-old assistant professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is the architect of a new theory called “dissipative adaption,” which has helped to explain how complex, life-like function can self-organize and emerge from simpler things, including inanimate matter.

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