How does inanimate matter come to breathe, thrive and reproduce? Explaining this magic means overhauling nature’s laws, says physicist Paul Davies

By Paul Davies

THERE is something special – almost magical – about life. Biophysicist Max Delbrück expressed it eloquently: “The closer one looks at these performances of matter in living organisms, the more impressive the show becomes. The meanest living cell becomes a magic puzzle box full of elaborate and changing molecules.”