Saturday Physics for Everyone 2016: Nigel Goldenfeld, "What can theoretical physics tell us..."

What can theoretical physics tell us about the evolution of early life? Life on Earth is wonderfully diverse, with a multitude of life forms, structures, and evolutionary mechanisms. However, there are two aspects of life that are universal—shared by all known organisms. These are the genetic code, which governs how DNA is converted into the proteins making up your body, and the unexpected left-handedness of the amino acids in your body. One would expect that your amino acids were a mixture of left- and right-handed molecules, but none are right-handed! In this talk, I describe how these universal aspects of biology can be understood as arising from evolution, but generalized to an era where genes, species, and individuality had not yet emerged. Lastly, I will describe experimental work, conducted in collaboration with Tom Kuhlman, that probes the mechanisms of evolution at the molecular level, in real time, in living cells. These experiments complement the theoretical work and can test some of the fundamental assumptions of the theory of evolution.