Every Life Is on Fire cover art

Every Life Is on Fire

How Thermodynamics Explains the Origins of Living Things

 Preview

Get 30 days of Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30-day free trial. Cancel monthly.
Try for £0.00
More purchase options
Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

About this listen

 A preeminent physicist unveils a field-defining theory of the origins and purpose of life.
Why are we alive? Most things in the universe aren't. And everything that is alive traces back to things that, puzzlingly, weren't.
For centuries, the scientific question of life's origins has confounded us. But in Every Life Is on Fire, physicist Jeremy England argues that the answer has been under our noses the whole time, deep within the laws of thermodynamics. England explains how, counterintuitively, the very same forces that tend to tear things apart assembled the first living systems.
But how life began isn't just a scientific question. We ask it because we want to know what it really means to be alive. So England, an ordained rabbi, uses his theory to examine how, if at all, science helps us find purpose in a vast and mysterious universe.
In the tradition of Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, Every Life Is on Fire is a profound testament to how something can come from nothing. Bible Study Bibles & Bible Study Biological Sciences Biology Christianity History & Philosophy Philosophy Religious Studies Science

Critic reviews

"Illuminating insights into the physics of life."—Kirkus
"In this sparklingly original book, Jeremy England tackles perhaps the biggest scientific question of all -- what is life, and how did it emerge from inanimate matter? It's a delight to read, not only for its charming content, but, because, much like the Hebrew scriptures interwoven throughout the text, the prose flows with a poetic rhythm. I couldn't put it down."—Ard Louis, University of Oxford
"A unique project that proposes to build a metaphorical bridge between the richness of mythic language and the precision of physical theory. Somewhere below this bridge flow the waters in which biological life first evolved and upon which England is an ecumenical-physicist river guide."—David Krakauer, president and William H. Miller Professor of Complex Systems, Santa Fe Institute
All stars
Most relevant
A brave and insightful approach bringing the conviction of faith to endow deeply thought out physical concepts with tangible meaning. The integrity of the narrative makes the recent rationality and science versus religion and faith facile, lazy and a body of irrelevant attention-grabbing point scoring.

Brilliant, thought-provoking book, well read

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Couldn’t return book so had to cancel my audible membership. Having spent hundreds on books they obviously don’t cherish their customers. I have no interest in the Hebrew bible I thought I was purchasing a science book on thermodynamics

Religion not science

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.