The Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften: Events
Friday, 10 May 2019, 16:00-18:00Venue: Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften, Conference Room
Research project »Complexity in Science, Culture, and Society«
Lecture and Workshop
William Martin (Düsseldorf University)
»The Origin of Life was very complex«
About the lecture
Life consists of chemical reactions, a very complex network of interactions, yet chemical reactions. The central metabolism of all forms of Life contains exergonic (energy yielding) reactions. These are necessary to drive the individual reactions of cells in the required direction: away from equilibrium. All living beings are derived from one universal common ancestor, because all cells use the same genetic code. In addition, all living beings use the same principle of energy conservation. However, there is a nearly endless diversity of chemical reactions, which can be involved in energy conservation. Which reactions could have been the first, at the onset of life? And how were they energized? And how could the first, simple reactions evolve into the complex networks that are used by present day organisms? We will never know for sure, but it is worth thinking and discussing about it.
Der Fachvortrag wird in englischer Sprache gehalten. Lecture and Workshop are part of the research project »Complexity in Science, Culture, and Society«, conducted by Matthias Lutz-Bachmann (Professor of Philosophy at Goethe University) and Harald Schwalbe (Professor of Organic Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Goethe University). It is funded by the avendtis foundation.
Please register in advance: info@forschungskolleg-humanwissenschaften.de.
Contact and further information:
Dr. Thomas Schimmer (email: t.schimmer@forschungskolleg-humanwissenschaften.de; phone: +49 (0)6172 13977 14)