'I predict a great revolution': inside the struggle to define life

Paul Davies thinks combining physics and biology will reveal a pattern of information management

All the brain cells of life on Earth still cannot explain life on Earth. Its most intelligent species has uncovered the building blocks of matter, read countless genomes and watched spacetime quiver as black holes collide. It understands much of how living creatures work, but not how they came to be. There is no agreement, even, on what life is.

The conundrum of life is so fundamental that to solve it would rank among the most important achievements of the human mind. But for all scientists' efforts - and there have been plenty - the big questions remain. If biology is defined as the study of life, on this it has failed to deliver.