how hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen create “life”
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We don’t know how life arose from non-living matter. The current theory is that, given enough time and the right conditions, atoms and molecules could bond to each other to form larger molecules, purely through luck. Repeat this process trillions of times, and you might get some simple proteins that arise. Repeat that process several trillion-trillion times, and you might get proteins that can interact with their surroundings; grab other molecules and force them to bond with each other to make proteins. Repeat that process several trillion-trillion times, and one of those proteins might start to self-replicate. That would be the start of what we might consider life.
Repeat the above process trillions of times, and you could end up with proteins that interact with each other, helping each other to make more of themselves. Some proteins might make “defensive” molecules to control their own environment, which would be the first cell membranes. Once there’s a cell membrane, proteins can specialize, because they are protected from whatever is outside the membrane. That means more complex proteins with more complex functions. Eventually a protein could be so specialized that all it does is make molecules that tell other proteins what to do; this would be the first RNA or DNA.
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