The Origin of Life

Oct 4, 2024 5:25 AM

Author:Paul Davies

The Origin of Life

From award-winning science writer Paul Davies, The Origin of Life reveals the remarkable new theories set to transform the understanding of our place in the universe.

Is life written into the laws of nature, or just a bizarre accident, unique in the universe? How can a mix of non-living chemicals be transformed into something as complex as the living cell?

Acclaimed physicist, astrobiologist and writer Paul Davies presents evidence that life began billions of years ago kilometres underground, arguing that it may well have started on Mars and spread to Earth in rocks blasted off the Red Planet by asteroid impacts. This solution to the riddle of life's origin has sweeping implications for the nature of the universe and our place within it, and opens the way to a radical rethinking of where we came from.

'One of a handful of first-rate scientists who are popular writers. If you are going to read only one book on the origin of life, seriously consider this one'

  The New York Times

'The best science writer on either side of the Atlantic'

  Washington Times

'Davies succeeds not only in being provocative and controversial, but in maintaining the rigorous scientific approach of the physicist... a classic example of how to present a scientific case, and an insight into the way good scientists work'

  John Gribbin, Independent

Paul Davies has achieved an international reputation for his ability to explain the significance of advanced scientific ideas in simple language. He is the author of some twenty books, including Superforce, God and the New Physics, The Mind of God, The Last Three Minutes, Are We Alone? and How to Build a Time Machine.

Reviews

Luminously beautiful and dartingly intelligent, Cocker's obsessive quest after the ancient trails of rooks across our dusk skies leads to an almost sacred space: a place where the landscape of the imagination and the lovingly, minutely observed realities of the natural world come to roost together

—— Richard Mabey

Guaranteed to ensure that you never look at a crow in quite the same way again

—— Guardian

Fabulous... Like all classic works of natural history, is is an extraordinary revelation of riches and wonders and that lie at our doorsteps, completely ignored

—— Independent

A splendid book...Crow Country's narrative of rookish discovery unfolds with splendid variety, incorporating scientific exposition, biography, environmental history, poetry, memoir and biography... Your heart beats faster as he describes a pack of tight-packed wigeon flushing in fear from an icy creak. You feel the shock of recognition as a barn owl meets his gaze. It's infectiously emotional. At it's most lyrical Crow Country matches the heights of that deeply eerie work of avian obsession JA Baker's The Peregrine; yet at its most scientific, it could sit alongside the best ornithological monographs... Crow Country is a significant, beautiful work

—— New Statesman

Exquisitely written, passionate exploration of the local and commonplace

—— BBC Wildlife

Cocker's gift is to draw you into his hobby so deftly that you quickly begin to share his every enthusiasm

—— Observer

Cocker is a beautiful writer...the twilight and his beloved rooks bring out the poet in him...a loving observation of the wonders on the wing in everyday England

—— Ann Wroe , Daily Telegraph

The nation's most observant and intuitive of nature writers

—— Sunday Express

As obsessive a celebration of rook and jackdaw - and of human immersion in nature - as anyone could wish

—— Irish Times

A vivid example of the "new nature writing" it is a lyrical and intense evocation of the world of jackdaws and rook, and an elegy on watchfulness

—— Daily Telegraph

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