Talk & Discussion

Paul Davies: The Demon in the Machine

07 Feb 2019

 / 7:00pm to 8:30pm
 / Free
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Highly acclaimed physicist Paul Davies will discuss his latest book The Demon in the Machine: How hidden webs of information are solving the mystery of life.

Known for probing the deepest questions of existence, Davies illuminates how ‘organised information’ may be the key to understanding new laws of life.

Despite dazzling progress in biology, nobody knows what life is or how it began. Now, an answer is at hand. From DNA through cell signalling to brains and ecosystems, hidden patterns of information emerge and combine to conjure order out of chaos.

It is here, Davies asserts, at the intersection of biology, physics and information theory, that scientists are finally elucidating the deepest laws of life.

The Demon in the Machine (Allen Lane) is the culmination of decades of Paul Davies’ own thinking about physics, life and complexity. It lays out the foundations for the next great frontier in science, in which new physical laws will be understood and exploited.

Paul Davies, Prof of Physics and Director of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science at Arizona State University, will be in conversation with science writer and comedic performer Helen Pilcher. Helen writes for The Guardian and the New Scientist and is currently developing her second book, The New Ark, which examines how humans have manipulated evolution.

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