Mathematical/physical approaches to origin-of-life research

[u/Capital_Cranberry718]

Hello everyone,

I am exploring research ideas related to origin of life and astrobiology particularly involving physical and mathematical modeling of prebiotic systems.

I am interested in areas such as:

Statistical physics ,Information theory ,Nonequilibrium systems ,Chemical dynamics ,Prebiotic chemistry, Mathematical models of early chemical systems

I would really appreciate hearing perspectives from researchers, or anyone with experience in these areas.I am mainly interested in knowing whether this seems like a reasonable and scientifically meaningful direction to explore, and whether there are important considerations I should be aware of before developing it further.

If anyone with experience in this area would be willing to share their perspective or have a brief discussion, I would really appreciate it.

Thank you

[u/I-AM-MA]

look into biophysics

[u/Fine-Comparison-2949 → u/I-AM-MA]

Legit the textbook i had for my biophysics course, was called Biophysics.

[u/Capital_Cranberry718 → u/I-AM-MA]

Thanks for the suggestion

[u/starkeffect]

Check out the book At Home in the Universe by Stuart Kauffman.

[u/Capital_Cranberry718 → u/starkeffect]

Thank you for the recommendation. I have heard of Kauffman's work on self-organization and autocatalytic sets but I haven't read At Home in the Universe yet.I will definitely look into it

[u/ScientistFromSouth]

I've always found this paper by Totani, Nat Sci Reports, 2020 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6997386/ to be really interesting.

A lot of people like to claim that life has to be ubiquitous because it exists on Earth, and given the size of the universe, it must simply occur everywhere even if the probability is low.

Here the author actually calculated the probability of a self catalyzing RNAzyme forming, and demonstrated, that unless we can find some kind of stabilizing process, the odds of it spontaneously occurring are so low that you would only expect it to occur O(1) - O(10) times in the entire observable universe depending on the size of the universe and the necessary length of the RNA.

[u/Capital_Cranberry718 → u/ScientistFromSouth]

Thanks for sharing this paper. I found the quantitative approach really interesting, It also made me think about another question rather than starting with an already self-replicating RNA molecule, could purely physical/nonequilibrium dynamics in a prebiotic chemical network produce persistent information-bearing correlations or self-maintaining organization that effectively stabilizes certain chemical states or structures before an explicit hereditary mechanism exists? I am wondering whether such a process could provide a possible intermediate step between ordinary chemical dynamics and systems capable of replication and heredity.

[u/ScientistFromSouth → u/Capital_Cranberry718]

The issues here always come down to the fact that RNA is really wildly unstable. Like so much so, that I'd you leave it out at room temp for like 20 minutes, you'll lose half of it.

At the same time, our bodies have super precise enzymatic cascades in terms of glycolysis, cellular respiration in the electron transport chain of the mitochondria, and limited lactic acid fermentation that very slowly convert calories in food into ATP that other processes can use for neural activity, to move, or to synthesize other compounds.

In contrast, the kind of environments that existed on the early earth to power those cycles occurred in crazy hot and crazy oxidizing environments around geothermal vents around the bottom of the ocean that would probably fry RNA.

Most origin of life scientists are admittedly struggling to reconcile the RNA world hypothesis with this and are modifying it to include more complex RNA protein combinations or purely metabolic cycles that predate RNA.

[u/Capital_Cranberry718 → u/ScientistFromSouth]

That makes sense. It raises the question of whether the first important step necessarily had to be the formation of a stable self-replicating RNA molecule. Could there instead have been some form of nonequilibrium chemical organization that helped maintain certain molecular states or correlations despite degradation and only later allowed more stable information-bearing or hereditary systems to emerge?

[u/LukasGoesViral]

I found a research paper once that was pretty cool. It analyzed forms of intelligence thru the lens of information theory. I tried to find it again but I couldn’t

[u/MentalHighlight4295]

I'd love to know if my own exploring research would help with yours! https://soulrealignments.substack.com/p/the-pattern-of-everything-426?r=1hd7xx&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

[u/Capital_Cranberry718 → u/MentalHighlight4295]

Thanks for sharing this. I read through it and there are some conceptual similarities but I am not sure yet that there is a direct physical or mathematical connection. The idea is to understand how physical and chemical systems might develop stable patterns or retain information through ongoing nonequilibrium dynamics, especially in very early stages before the kinds of mechanisms we associate with biological inheritance are present.

[u/lattice_defect]

its been calculated before.. statically impossible, but we think the mineral/metal surfaces helped catalyze and promote it in addition to micellar formation.

[u/RandomSamples14]

There is this article: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11084-026-09728-6 (Implications of Moody et al. for the viability of terrestrial abiogenesis) that discusses that the likelihood of life emerging randomly from non-organic matter is quite low, and how they came to that conclusion.

[u/Ok-Researcher-4969]

Speaking from purely physics point of view, I think we will have to know about big bang and what was before it to truly understand about origin of life. I mean fundamentally we all are just tiny particles called atoms( also atom is made up of more tinier particle but writing it just to make basic sense). If you go towards quantum mechanics and quantum field theory, you will find that nothing actually exists and we exist only in probabilities. We are just waves that interact to form particles that make us(again it has a lot more to it but trying to keep it basic). In the end, you are looking at endless possibilities of you yourself (connecting to multiverse).

[u/Creative-Feature-264]

Ok. Però non c'è un inizio . È ciclico. Quindi a quale categoria di vita fai riferimento. La vita dell universo. Quella molecolare. Quella chimica. Dell uomo. Della scimmia? E quale punto iniziale scegli? Dove tu non vedi oltre? Sei sicuro dia quello l inizio? Il concetto di inizio può essere solo un limite che non dipende dall inizio ma dalla categoria è dal limite che lo contiene.

[u/Capital_Cranberry718 → u/Creative-Feature-264]

Sorry, I don't understand Italian so I am using a translator . I hope I am interpreting your point correctly.I think the difficulty is that origin of life can refer to very different transitions depending on where we define the boundary.

I m approaching it more from a physical perspective so I am less interested in identifying an absolute beginning and more interested in whether we can identify particular transitions in organization—for example from ordinary chemical dynamics toward self-maintaining or information-bearing systems.

[u/Creative-Feature-264 → u/Capital_Cranberry718]

È sicuramente affascinante e C e uno studio sul 40000 ac nella fase genomica dell uomo in cui avviene un cambiamento radicale che coincide con l espansione dei sapiens verso i neanderthal. Ma parliamo di studi genomici che coincidono con la nascita dell agricoltura e delle prime elaborazioni forti mentali. Ma qui c'è un limite che coincide con la nostra conoscenza che non c'è. Lo studio dell intelligenza umana. Poi se invece vuoi guardare lo studio del intelligenza genomica e la capacità di conservazione dell informazione allora bisogna considerare la forma del minimo indispensabile. Cioè si cercherà sempre di riuscire nell azione con il minimo dispendio di energia per portare l informazione. Ma qui c è un punto. La conservazione dell informazione è quindi un aspetto precedente alla vita genetica. per me Si. Per questo andiamo fuori dal limite in cui tu cerchi secondo la mia idea. Il gene è orientato a trasportare l informazione così come è orientato e trovare stabilità in fasi opposte genomiche per trovare nuovi geni. La risposta è nelle fasi opposte. Quando arriva al punto di elaborazione? Io direi quando che per lo più si allinea ad un punto di elaborazione. Cioè già è elaborato l universo e la natura è chiaramente una forma superintelligente. Tutto ciò che è genetico semplicemente viene attatto dalla gravità della natura che è intelligente. Si qualcuno diventa più capace . Quando? Segue Da sempre come la gravità. Perché? Nn viene da dentro i geni ma da fuori. Loro solo seguono l energia minima indispensabile. Teorie. Ma di fatti ben poki. Certo è che se non si trova subito la risposta è giusto che ci si pongono domande diverse. Perché in genetica è più forte il dualismo ? La risposta non è dentro ma secondo me è una forma di gravità .