Image: Quanta

Scientists are scouring the universe for evidence of extraterrestrial life, but have you ever wondered how life began on Earth? Let physicist David Kaplan explain in the latest installment of Quanta’s “In Theory” video series. Hint: it’s all because of increasing entropy.

As Natalie Wolchover wrote for Quanta last year, an MIT professor named Jeremy England has come up with an actual mathematical formula for how this might happen:


Mind. Blown.