How did living things come from non living things

Question

so in the begining there were gases and stuff like hydrogn. overtime cuz of gravity they came together and made new stuff like oxygen. but all these were non living gases so how did things like FUBA or Ameba come from

In: 29

Answer 1

The tricky part of this question is defining what counts as life. Ultimately life is a process, it’s a collection of chemical reactions so life would occur when those reactions could happen. Which reactions happen under which circumstances is complicated.

But let’s say a living thing has two aims, to maintain itself and to copy itself. Then we can look at the points at which self replicating molecules were first stored in containers that protected them.

Thanks to chemistry we can see some molecules spontaneously arrange into spheres. For example if a molecule has an end that’s attracted to water and an end that’s repelled by water those molecules can group together with their hydrophobic ends at the centre of a sphere and their hydrophilic ends on the outside. Now you have a ball that can keep its insides in and its outsides out.

This ball is the perfect place for a self replicating molecule to self replicate without worrying about conditions changing too much.