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The Physics of Life (ft. It's Okay to be Smart & PBS Eons!) | Space Time

PBS Space Time - 2018-04-11

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It's OK to be Smart - Where Did Life Come From? https://youtu.be/_uAJY1mqtw4
Eons - What Was the Ancestor of Everything? https://youtu.be/pk213XSSktQ

Our universe is prone to increasing disorder and chaos. So how did it generate the extreme complexity we see in life? Actually, the laws of physics themselves may demand it.

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Previous Episode:
The Unruh Effect
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cj6oiFDEXc

How did life begin? We can seek the answer in the chemistry of the early earth, or in the biology of the first cell. In fact our friends at PBS Eons and It’s OK to be Smart will do just that in companion videos to this one. But we all know that chemistry and biology are just applied physics. So can we approach the question of the origin and the very nature of life from the point of view of physics? We’re sure going to try.


Hosted and written by Matt O'Dowd
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Smonjirez - 2018-04-11

"What is my purpose?"
"You are an agent in the inexorable trend to maximize entropy."
"Oh my god..."

Gérard Philippe - 2019-08-04

@Iago Silva like a lock n load internet watchword rage machine gun man

Iago Silva - 2019-08-05

@Gérard Philippe Toujours

Lee rV. - 2019-11-13

All things serve the Beam.

Kalem Doucette - 2019-12-01

To hydrogenate C02

Alberto Ardura Fabregat - 2020-01-14

If we are agents in the inexorable trend to maximize entropy, this makes the awareness of our existence so much the more awe-inspiring and opens the questions of why do we believe in right and wrong, good and bad in the first place?
Why are we so attracted to beauty, liberty and love if they would all be an illusion and no one is free to escape death and annihilation?
Why are we called to and orient ourselves to complexity and perfection if that means we’re disobeying the deepest and most important laws of nature? Why do we seek to rebel against the laws of the Universe?

Jolez _ - 2018-07-19

2:30
"Your cells contain 6 billion base pairs of DNA"
There are hundreds of types of cells with DNA and you showed the one type (red blood cell) that doesn't have it.

Lovro Grum - 2020-01-08

I'm glad that I'm not the first one to notice it!

ayush kumar - 2019-03-14

"Chemistry and Biology are just Applied Physics."
Ooooooooohhhhhhhh... BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRNNN

Sujai Gorai - 2020-01-22

@clearz we learn mathematics form observing the universe and its laws

clearz - 2020-01-22

Sujai Gorai I'm sorry but you are completely wrong. There is an entire body of Maths known as Pure Mathematics that is not based around any physics. This is not to say that Physicists won't find a use for some of the ideas coming from pure maths and this has happened in the past.

clearz - 2020-01-22

@Sujai Gorai Again wrong. We "learn" mathematics by choosing a set of first principles called axioms which we then use to build proofs from, which in turn can be used to build more proofs.

Sujai Gorai - 2020-01-22

@clearz thank you...I understand

clearz - 2020-01-22

@Sujai Gorai Here is one of my favourite introduction to maths courses which you can check out on youtube. Each video is only 20-30 mins long and is very informative and concise. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZzHxk_TPOStgPtqRZ6KzmkUQBQ8TSWVX

agiar2000 - 2018-04-12

This reminds me of a joke that I read online once:

A creationist was arguing that the evolution of species from simpler to more complex violated the second law of thermodynamics. They claimed that such a transformation would require a colossal input of outside energy.

I stayed up all night trying to think of what sort of energy source that could be.

...then it dawned on me. ;)

Science Guy - 2019-11-17

That joke is hilarious, but not in the way you meant it to be. Just applying raw energy does not complexity make. When was the last time you saw a fire freeze water into ice cubes? Everything still tends toward entropy, whether the system is open or closed. Notice how he said the only system that maintains low entropy is life. He did not say that any open system tends toward low entropy. I don’t want to defer to creationist authority, but this still might clear the topic up for you: https://creation.com/the-second-law-of-thermodynamics-answers-to-critics

Science Guy - 2019-11-17

BTW, evolution by natural selection does not violate this law, because of mutation. However, the origin of life DOES.

rwarren58 - 2020-01-30

Well done!

Arcaine - 2020-02-27

@Brandon Witherspoon Energy is released to form chemical bonds which is what occurs in the formation of organisms. Consequently, thermal energy is released and then dissipates from a low-entropy state to a higher-entropy state, thus entropy has increased.

Brandon Witherspoon - 2020-02-27

Thank you all for the replies. I'm not necessarily a creationist but that doesn't particularly matter at the moment. I understand that we increase entropy because we use energy and are a dissipative structure. However if you view dna as a system rather than an individual expression, than it seems interesting to me that the overall continuations of it continue to complexity rather than break down. I understand that this scenario doesn't exactly deal with the second law of thermodynamics but we are the most interesting and complex system that the wind down of energy has produced yet.

mikejvasquez76 - 2018-04-12

Here's a little physics joke, maybe. A neutron walked into a bar and asked, "How much for the gin and tonic?" The bartender smiled wryly and replyed, "For you, no charge." Well have a good day or evening everyone.

mikejvasquez76 - 2018-04-15

lol, good one. :-)

CanYaDigIt - 2018-07-10

Soooo original.

Peter Allan - 2018-09-11

But this bar was on one floor so there was no going between up and down.

Gerardo Mora - 2019-05-07

Did you know that electrons have mass?

I didn't even know they were catholic!

We The People - 2019-07-28

Credits to TBBT

GiggitySam Entz - 2018-04-11

2:30
Talks about a cell's DNA
Shows a cell that has no DNA

Oh well at least the DNA is the right handedness XD

Tomsci sci - 2018-04-12

#notbaddna

Frank Schneider - 2018-04-12

GiggitySam Entz
So Z-DNA doesn't exist ?

Carlos Pacheco - 2018-04-25

hahaha cool that someone notice it

Enkaptaton - 2019-05-19

I thought the same. Luckily he did not show a platelet

therugburnz - 2019-11-20

This happens more often than I expected.

New Message - 2018-04-12

So.. in the end... I really am an energy sink.

Dad was right.

Jack Xiao - 2018-04-14

"What is my purpose?"

"You dissipate energy."

... "Oh my god."

It's Okay To Be Smart - 2018-04-11

Marvel: "Avengers: Infinity War is the most ambitious crossover event in history?"
PBS Space Time, Eons, It's Okay To Be Smart: "GOGGLE UP!"

Saksham Kumar - 2018-09-18

and vsauce

Ronin - 2019-04-03

speaking of evolution and developing complexity... I really am loving this happening with the youtube nerd channels.

TheRainHarvester - 2019-06-03

Here are some pixels that are attempting to evolve:
https://youtu.be/gaFKqOBTj9w

Ive_y 79 - 2019-08-10

End game is out now so who cares

Jake X - 2019-11-17

Ok, boomer.

fitnesspoint2006 - 2018-04-11

2:38 You show a mature RED BLOOD CELL with DNA coming out of it, which technically contain no DNA only hemoglobin.

Wes Robins - 2018-04-13

It is on the screen with the biologist.  So it is a goof either way.  Can't just say "it's a physics channel..."

Iago Silva - 2018-04-13

So? I can photoshop a pic of N d Tyson in a Flat-Earther vid and call it "Tyson's goof" XD

Wes Robins - 2018-04-13

Except that NDT was not part of your picture willingly. I am saying this was an editing mistake and should have been run by all parties concerned. PBS ST has made goofs in the past, they are after all, humans. :)

Iago Silva - 2018-04-14

That's what I think; but, instead of writing all that analysis, I simply wrote "Phys channel; if you want biologists to bitch about it, go to the companion vids" :)

Luis Aldamiz - 2018-04-17

A wizard did it!





No, serious: it's of course a major error, just could not help after reading the same comment like two dozen times already. Someone in PBS studios is banging his/her head against a wall right now for that.

Nameless Nick97 - 2018-04-11

that ending statement though holy crap

MusiCanines - The Musical Dogs - 2018-04-15

The universe created me so I'd raise its entropy for it?

Mind BLOWN! 😵

Max Smith - 2018-10-14

Maybe the universe created us to stop entropy increasing as it can't do it without life, as matter is bound by the laws of physics?

Jack Carver - 2019-01-11

@Max Smith Yes! I thought this too. Sick of all the pessimists saying we are bound for sure to die in a heat death when solving it could be the point of existence. Who knows when we have a few trillion years to figure it out and right now dont even know what 80% of the stuff in our universe is (dark matter & energy)

Led - 2019-01-31

Jack Sparrow thank you I was having some existential crisis haha

Eronx - 2019-02-24

I don’t think so. Intelligent Life is capable of so much more. All of the scientists talking about self reproducing cells. But life created much much more than this. We can decide what we do. And with an infinite time to evolve, maybe a future civilization can stop the entropy once and forever.

omnishruk - 2020-02-20

Dude the universe didn't "create" you, you ARE the universe! You're a conscious, localised expression of its processes. But ultimately there's no separation between you and It.

Eco Geek - 2018-04-12

Abseiled into a Kugelblitz with a Geiger counter yesty arvo.

Was so high.

-Australia

Brett Keeler - 2019-03-18

8:56. I had to listen a couple of times before I realized he actually said SHEDDING heat! It really sounded like a different word.💩

Balloon Man - 2018-04-12

I'd like to call in a homicide. Because PBS just blew my mind

Luis Aldamiz - 2018-04-17

Brainicide. You can probably still live without such a sensitive mind.

vinm300 - 2019-04-12

That is wrong "Must increase over time".
There is no force driving disorder, it is just "extremely unlikely" for a state to become
more organised. So "must" should be replaced by "almost certainly will".

Jake X - 2019-11-17

vinm300 “almost certainly”

rwarren58 - 2020-01-30

I agree. There are no absolutes. Almost.

Josh Campbell - 2019-02-14

So,
The purpose of life is to dissipate energy. We are all tiny entropy serving machines, harbingers of heat death.

erictko85 - 2020-02-12

That seems to be something that life does, as Jeremy England's research suggests, but I dont believe that defines its "purpose".

shmuckling - 2018-04-12

Watch until the very end! LOL Matt goes in #SAVAGE mode.

Nate Smith - 2018-04-16

"We all know chemistry and biology are just applied physics." :D You tell em.

Enrico Alessio - 2018-04-13

at 2:36 you could have chosen a type of cell that actually has DNA in it :D

other than that, great video as always

Bruce Joy - 2018-04-15

A temporary eddy of order in a universe moving towards disorder: that's my ego's smackdown for the day.

stiimuli - 2018-04-11

Sup my fellow localized eddies of order

Eric Henschke - 2018-04-16

Sup? Entropy... Duh.

Michael-Tommy De Rita - 2018-05-03

sup

Lambent Ichor - 2018-06-21

To Serve Man: Making comments vaguely hinting at problems with a presentation without explaining exactly what the problem is is just adding problems to understanding.

Is this a habit of yours? Making comments that people will struggle to understand and yet acting as if the meaning should be clear?

Eddie Grathwohl - 2018-08-05

stiimuli as an Eddie I can confirm this lol

It is I - 2018-09-26

And here I am thinking I was useless all along

G Mallory - 2018-04-12

hey Mr Biologist , I thought red blood cells had no DNA. it must be a ploy to gets all these nerds to comment😎👍👊😼👏

markdelej - 2018-07-18

“We are something the whole universe is doing in the same way a wave is something that the whole ocean is doing” - Alan Watts.

We are a process the universe does that allows the universe to experience itself

Louis-gabriel Calix - 2020-02-28

yes, our mind is the most complex function we know today, a function that with some of the billions subfunctions we're made of allows itself to be aware of itself and its surroundings. The uncountable emergences of complexity that took place between us and a rock allow us to say that as a rock isn't processing anything, barely responding to the Universe's effects on it, and thus can't be a complex enough function to be aware of itself, even if we're the same nature of inputs/outputs system than this rock or anything else.

Timothy Stratton - 2020-03-22

Louis-gabriel Calix A rock is as good at being a rock as we are at being human. Therefore, it is as conscious as we are. If you can’t go there, what about a plant? Defining consciousness is so difficult!

Louis-gabriel Calix - 2020-03-22

@Timothy Stratton yeah but what we often regard as consciousness is our own human consciousness. And we can't say a rock has any sort of vision on itself contrarily to us, or even any vision at all because it doesn't process structured causal data, nor does it has senses.

Louis-gabriel Calix - 2020-03-22

@Timothy Stratton actually the answer lies in the "degrees of consciousness"

Jascha Bull - 2019-04-23

2:35: Wait, isn't that an erythrocyte? I thought those didn't have nuclei.


Also, that last statement wasn't ridiculously nihilistic at all. Yoiks.

sophrapsune - 2018-04-11

We are all intermingled eddies in a flow of free energy.
Reminds me of Heraclitus: one can not step into the same river twice.

Teth47 - 2018-04-11

2:36 Talking about how many base pairs of DNA there are in cells and you show an active red blood cell, i.e. THE ONLY HUMAN CELL WITH NO DNA IN IT!

The iron-y. (Get it? Because red blood cells are red because of iron? I'll leave now.)

Ari Sudewa - 2018-07-09

Teth47 but they do have mitochondrial DNA right?

Curtis Leonard - 2018-08-10

Teth47 in

TheSomeGui - 2018-09-07

Ari, they have no DNA at all, neither mitochondrial. All their organelles and stuff have been expelled from the cell, so they are just filled up with hemoglobin and some other enzymes to keep things working for around 120 days, when they usually die. They are actually the reason why we have a basal lactate blood level, as their energetic metabolism only goes as far as to the glycolysis, therefore producing anaerobic waste, such as lactic acid.

Ari Sudewa - 2018-09-07

@TheSomeGui those are news to me. Thank you

Tadesan - 2018-11-14

Teth47 lol nice

tobuslieven - 2018-04-11

3:28 The biosphere becomes more interesting over time. The future is fun.

Lelouch Yagami - 2018-04-12

Just nitpicking but the carbon atom is larger than an oxygen atom 6:55

David Arnryd - 2018-04-13

Due to it bonding with hydrogen you mean?

Lelouch Yagami - 2018-04-13

In general the size of the carbon atom by itself, regardless of whether it's bonded or not, is still larger than an oxygen atom.

Gareth Dean - 2018-04-15

More positively charged nucleus can pull the electrons in closer, even if there's two more of them.

V Blaas - 2018-05-02

Even the DNA is wrong, there is no major and minor groove (getting the symmetry right is important in physics! ;) ), so no double helix. And the protein is quite sad as well (see protein database - rcsb.org - motm)

Jesse Roberts - 2018-04-14

I call the band name: low entropy eddie and the turbulent flow.

Ian Schimnoski - 2018-04-12

Ad: "Live on youtube"

Me: "Live on YouTube‽
I already do!!!"

Randall Blyler - 2018-04-11

Cool! Just by being alive, I'm helping to destroy the Universe! Thanks! This knowledge is so liberating!

mowsie2k - 2018-04-20

I did the 420th like on 420 nice
EDIT: also nice comment 👏👏

Khan Don - 2018-04-22

Randall Blyler mmm

Khan Don - 2018-04-22

EebstertheGreat lzccv v xxbxbccb v

Khan Don - 2018-04-22

V b v

Alien Ami - 2018-08-02

Life's purpose...to create Entropy?! 😭
And yet life also resists Entropy itself?! 🤯

We create, from destroying. We replicate by destroying... all the while also resisting Entropy... are we like stars, then? Exploding while imploding, so we can release our payload of increased complexity?

The only way to fight our calling is to be our best selves...destroy the least until we ourselves find a way to break this cycle while reluctantly obeying it the least...rebels going against the current.

Also, yeah... Anti-Spirals aren't really wrong with their goals.

#Anime #GurrenLagann #AntiSpirals

jesus mora - 2018-04-11

"chemistry and biology are just applied physics" hahahahahahaha

satria nugraha - 2020-03-06

Me trying to sleep at 3 am
Brain: let"s see video about entropy and LUCA

J TDH - 2018-04-12

10:35
Finally an answer to the age old question about the purpose of life.
"In service of the spread of disorder and dullness."
"An agent in the inexorable trend to maximise the entropy of spacetime."
These will make two brilliant t-shirts!Please PBS Spacetime!

Simon Marchetti - 2018-04-12

"Life acts to reduce its own internal entropy by increasing the entropy of its surroundings"

korey Jeffers - 2018-04-11

I keep telling my mom that my room WAS clean but then that dang entropy came in and messed it all up

EditioCastigata - 2018-04-12

Every time you organize your room the universe gets more disorderly. Tell your mom to pick the lesser evil.

Lukas Klees - 2018-04-12

Wrong definition

Diaming787 - 2018-04-12

EditioCastigata That’s actually true because you need energy to move items around but much that energy is lost in entropy!

Bryan McCormick - 2018-04-13

the cat in the hat is negative entropy?

Abhishek Prakash - 2018-04-13

"Entropy is the measure of the boringness of the system". First time I've ever understood Entropy!

accordiongordon - 2018-04-19

“The 2nd lorr of thermodynamics”

Zehra Rizvi - 2019-12-19

2:30 y’all used a picture of one of the few cells that don’t contain DNA

Katherine Nanooch - 2018-04-13

By far the greatest compliment ever! "A momentary fluctuation of... Interesting."

Danie van der Westhuizen - 2019-11-05

3:55 global warming explained, in a nutshell.

MrSevillian - 2019-12-30

My favorite video of the series so far, and I've seen many. It addresses one of the biggest existential questions by integrating the other sciences into a holistic view, keeping it understandable all along. Really grand.

Ryukachoo - 2018-04-12

12:10
Unruh particles; audible

Jacob Romano - 2019-05-15

5:38 "But... where on EARTH did it happen"
Both literally and figuratively :) :) :)
O'Dude, you spit hot fire like a Quasar

Georgi Mitev - 2018-04-11

of all the cells you could have chosen you picked the one that doesn't have a nucleus...

ernstvermeulen1989 - 2018-04-15

I may be the average viewer, but I can differetiate between a number of different human cells. However, this show is, as far as I know, meant for a broader audiance, so they should present correct information.

mrigya kaushik - 2018-04-24

tbird81 umm.. Joe Hanson "the guy" does have a PhD in cell and molecular biology... so yeah I think it's safe to say that he is a Biologist. so is Hank Green.. as far as I know.

mrigya kaushik - 2018-04-24

tht been said. I'm not complaining. they made a tiny mistake and it wasn't the host's fault.

Ari Sudewa - 2018-07-09

Geo Mit but they do have mitochondrial DNA right?

Lance Tschirhart - 2019-03-17

@tbird81 He is not an actor. He is a professor at the City University of New York. But he is very beautiful, so an honest mistake to make and assert without checking.

Tim Haldane - 2018-04-12

"Eddies in the space-time continuum." "'Ah...is he. Is he." "What?" "Er, who is Eddy, then, exactly?"

Meep Changeling - 2018-04-12

"Storing hundreds of megabytes of data!" Much Data. Very big. Wow.

Matz3randy - 2019-11-11

Funny how they chose to represent DNA in cells by erythrocytes, one of the few cell types that have no DNA at all...

Nick C - 2018-04-12

8:55 I’m pretty good at “shidding heat” too after a few bean burritos