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Lee: I'm Lee Cronin. I'm the Regius Professor of Chemistry at University of Glasgow.

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I run a pretty big research group exploring complex chemistry

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and I try to think about how things got started in chemistry and biology

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and how to make ways to explore all of chemistry.

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Speaker 2: Is there one question, in particular, you ask yourself?

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Lee: Yeah.

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I think the question I ask myself a lot is, "Why?" And I suppose linked to that, "How did, basically,

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the earth become living?" I am an inorganic chemist.

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The word "inorganic" is associated with dead or nonliving and organic chemistry is associated with living.

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The question I ask, almost to make fun or to describe it clearly, is,

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"How did dead chemistry become living?" Or "How did an inorganic world become organic?" Put simply,

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where did biology come from on earth?

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Speaker 2: What's the difference between organic chemistry and biology?

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Lee: I can answer that in a very complex way and a very simple way,

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I would say biology uses organice chemistry and it's able to build machines based on organic chemistry. The ultimate machine that biology's built is the organic chemist, because then they can make more molecules,

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but this is a robot argument I'll talk about later, but biology, predominately, is based up on organic chemistry.

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It's a very nice chemistry.

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All your DNA, all the proteins, all your muscles, all built with organic chemistry and some inorganic stuff.

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Some salt and all that to make it work.

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Speaker 2: The main question you try to answer is "How do we create life from dead material?".

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Lee: Yeah. Absolutely. If you imagine back to the.. When planet earth got started.

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It was probably a fairly busy place. Asteroids, meteorites and lava, thunder and lightning, but it was dead.

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I think of it like a beach, like sand on a beach where there was nothing but the wind blowing it around.

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How does that sand on the beach, that inorganic dead stuff turn into living stuff? To seaweed.

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To fish. To the trees. To the grass. To the bacteria. What on earth happened? Literally, what on earth happened?

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It's quite an interesting question, because put so simply, it's a chemist's ultimate dream.

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It's like, this is the question: What turned the dead chemistry into living chemistry?

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Speaker 2: This is the question?

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Lee: For me, yeah.

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Speaker 2: Why did you raise that question?

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Lee: Well, I'm not the first to raise that question. Lots of people raise that question in their own way.

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I guess we all have a "What is the meaning?" question, don't we?

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Whether you're an artist or a composer or a film maker or an architect, I guess we all..

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There is all meaning in the things that we build and create.

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For me, I'm really fascinated by the fact that chemistry's extremely complicated. Organic chemistry's complicated.

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The way that biology works, disease works, molecules work, it's all complicated.

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I can do stuff with my hands and my eyes, but it's complicated.

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If I purposefully build something, I'm controlling my fingers, I can see my work, but how did that work without me?

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I wondered, "What are the steps...

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What are the simple steps that lead to complexity?" For me, it's kind of like manifestation of..

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Although I'm a chemist, I don't really understand very much chemistry. It seems quite complicated.

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I'd like to know where we start.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, because now add an aspect in its complexity, but where does it start with you?

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Trying to answer that question.

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Lee: Oh gosh. I guess in the laboratory I was always fascinated how I could make molecules make themselves.

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What we try to do, there's this thing called nanotechnology.

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Nanotechnology is bigger than the molecule, but smaller than, say, a second hand or a spring in a very fine watch.

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How can I get molecules to go into that nano world? Because then I can make nano machines.

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If I can make nano machines, then I can do all sorts of fascinating things.

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As an inorganic chemist, I basically took sand, stuff as simple as sand, and all I did was I added acid to it.

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When I added acid to certain sands, they turned into nano objects. I was fascinated.

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How could those nano objects build themselves?

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Part of the training I got when I was doing my PhD, and after my PhD, was explaining

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and exploring this self assembly of sand. Literally, how could the sand castle build itself without the bucket?

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How could the grains of sand know that each other existed to build the castle? I spent a lot of time looking at that.

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Maybe, because I look back in time, it's easy for me to say, "Oh, I was always interested in the origin of life

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and making new life," but I guess it started with a fascinating of just complexity in general.

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How could the castle build itself without a person or a bucket?

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Speaker 2: Is it like could this house have built itself?

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Lee: No. That's really-

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Speaker 2: It's too complex...

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Lee: Yeah. Well, it's not.. Well, of course, a house build itself if you allow the human being to be..

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Because the thing is now I say to people, "Oh a 747 is too complicated

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to spontaneously assemble." There is a problem with probability and there is a problem with complexity.

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If you say to a mathematician or a statistician that something is complex,

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they will translate that to as being improbable to happen on its own. I think they're wrong.

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I think it's not just improbable, I think the chances of it happening are zero.

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I think the chances of some improbable things happening is zero.

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Just because you put a number on it,

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it makes them feel better.	With a 747 there is a zero chance a 747 will assemble itself..

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However, have a origin of life, have human beings, make your 747, they then..

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The human being plus technology makes a 747, so clearly the probability isn't zero, because 747s exist..

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I think that that's.. About this house. The house didn't form itself. A person did it.

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When you then think about life, a life is a very interesting thing,

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because it's a machine that can act on surroundings to conquer it.

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It's almost like, for me, living matter is somehow superior to dead matter, because it can literally-

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Speaker 2: Oh, if it's a problem

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Lee: Fine. Fine. Fine. For me, it's really interesting to me about enslavement and stuff going on.

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This house did not build itself, a human being did. Okay. What built the human being?

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That's go down from there and you go backwards and backwards

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and backwards down to say what is the simplest thing that could happen by chance that could make more sophisticated

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things happen? This is where all the notion of complexity came from then the house then the person.

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I often have say one thing, which is no origin of life, no biology. No biology, no biologists.

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No biologist, no human being. No philosopher, no philosophy.

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I'll try and say it in a bit of a more elegant way later, but it's kind of interesting..

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Quintessentially, what I'm saying is that you and I, we, human beings, we see the world and we make a..

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We understand the world.

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We perceive it, so what is it about the stuff in me, the atoms in me, that allow me to appreciate the world?

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That is a really interesting phase transition.

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The sand in that castle is not aware of itself, but you add some complexity to it

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and a few billion years of evolution and you have of a human being. How did that happen?

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Speaker 2: I don't know.

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Lee: I think it's a step in complexity. We can go right down to the history of it-.

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Speaker 2: But can you describe the complexity? On this level you are doing your research..

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You are trying to find the building blocks or where it all started? The dead parts..

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Lee: Yeah. There's lots of.. I don't know if you want to go down this part depending..

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I'll let you me, but if you.. Let's go back to the origin of life.

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People often talk about trying to work out the origin of life. I think it's a really important problem.,

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There is more money and time being spent on the origin of the universe and the origin of mass, i.e.,

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that's the Higgs boson and gravity, than the origin of life.

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THere's never been a big project for the origin of life, but if I could understand where life came from or if I could,

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and this is my objective to make new life in my lab, I could then tell you if alien life is possible,

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the constraints for new life forms, and I could expand the chemistry.

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The chemical space beyond what we know already and we could talk about the shadow biosphere

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and new types of life forms. That's a really important problem.

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The problem with the origin of life is that it is a historical question.

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Lots of people go back and say, first assumption, origin of life took billions of years.

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Well, everyone's saying, "Well, no, maybe just a billion." Say, "Well, why a billion?

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Chemistry occurs much faster than a billion years. Evolution takes a long time. We know that.

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Then when you think about the problem, so if complex chemistry didn't take a billion years, how long?

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A hundred million? Two hundred million? What about a year?

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What about if you could go from sand to a primitive cell in a year? What would that change?

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Then you say, "Okay, people say that that's impossible." Then you say, "Why?" They say, "Well,

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origin of life was clearly improbable. Clearly impossible. We are clearly a fluke..

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We are clearly an accident." That's also a very.. That's not tested.

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The fact we are here, the first assumption I make is that we're easy. Life is easier than you think.

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Speaker 2: Wait a minute. We are easy?

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Lee: We are easy.

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Speaker 2: You mean our life? Our form of life? Our intelligence or is-

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Lee: No. No, no, no. I think there are three problems I'm really interested in...

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First of all is how to make a new life form. Second one is how can that life.. Does it..

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Is it a single cell or something. Then, how does that life form become cooperative to make a multi-cellular creature?

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Because, actually, that took a billion years. That did take a very long time. Could we speed it up?

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Thirdly, what happens to that multi-cellular creature to make it intelligent? To have a brain and then have senses.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Lee: I think the origin of life might be much easier than we think.

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Multi-cellularity might just take time and then the real magic might be how do we get to intelligence.

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I just would like, so I'm a chemist, and I would just like to answer the sand to cell question

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or the dead to life first. I don't have a hundred million years. I don't maybe have a thousand years.

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I might have 10 years or 20 years, so what can I do in my laboratory to speed that up? What assumptions can I make?

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If I make those assumptions about time and complexity, does it allow me to say something really obvious like, "Well-"...

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You know what, let's say it was simple and let's assume it took no time. Took no time.

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What do we then do that opens up the entire chemical space?

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Speaker 2: Let me take a few steps back and I'm trying to visualize your lab. What is happening there?

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What are you doing there to answer your first question?

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Lee: Wow. What am I doing in my lab? Yeah.

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My lab now is real exciting, because it combines expertise I've been dreaming of getting together for a decade.

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or actually, probably as long as.. For 32 years.

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Since I was 10 years old, because it combines people who can play with computers. It combines robots.

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It combines chemistry. It combines vision.

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What we're trying to do in one half of the lab is we're trying to really good chemistry, to make new molecules.

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The other half of the lab we're trying to build robots that will do really simple chemistry,.

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to build really simple molecules. We're trying to.. Look at that chemist over there, they're amazing.

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Look at that robot over there, that's really dumb.

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How can we make the dumb robot as smart as the smart chemist and what does that mean?

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Is there something the robot can do that's simple that can get smarter?

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At the moment, we've got a number of approaches. The first approach is what I call "bottom up," sand to sand castle.

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We are basically shaking the sand in a bucket

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and we're hoping that the grains collect together to build something miraculous.

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We can do it to some degree, but only small miracles. No big miracles. We're finding something really interesting.

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That small miracles can have bigger miracles and bigger miracles. This is what we call template-based self assembly..

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If you think of.. I want to make an arched and a bridge. I want to make a bridge across a river.

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One way of doing it is to build an arch, but to build an arch you need a template for the arch.

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You can made out of wood,

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but what if I could make the template of out of arch form spontaneously to fill in the bridge. That's kind of nice.

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Suddenly, the arch builds a bridge. In my lab, we're trying to make sure that we can do that.

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We've found a way of a molecule makes its own archway and then it makes a bridge.

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Then the archway dissolves and all you see is the bridge.

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The chemist is like going, "Where did the bridge come from?

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I didn't build the arch?" We caught the archway, literally, with its trousers down by accident, like, there.

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Snapshot and then we understood that. That's what we call bottom up.

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Speaker 2: Do you have another example of that one? Just to understand, because you tell me about the sand-

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Lee: Yup. Yup...

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Speaker 2:. You tell me the castle, but the sand, is that.. Do you mean the molecule?

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Lee: No. I mean the grain of sand.

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Speaker 2: The grain of sand..

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Lee: Just a grain.. That sand castle is made up of sand.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Lee: To make a sand castle, you can do one of two things: You could position each sand with a microscope, by hand,

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it would take you a long time.

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You could get a bucket with the right indentation and just scoop the sand and put it in there.

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or you could program the sand to self-assembly like ants. Somehow, how do you..

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What are the smallest rules you can come up with? It's a bit like trying to work out those rules. Another archway-

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Lee: It's a hard one. Another archway that would do itself spontaneously.

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Speaker 2: It's for me to understand..

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Lee: It's a bit like making a snowman. We made a snowman outside with my son the other day. It's a bit like..

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Our snowman was made up of four snow balls. We started rolling the snow together to make a big ball.

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We just rolled the snow for, maybe, 10 minutes and we got a ball that was basically half a meter.

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then we rolled it for less time and we got, maybe a quarter of a meter. Put it on top.

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Then another one for basically half of a quarter of a meter on top. We have the fat, less fat, so a snowman.

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Here's a way of doing it to say could I allow a stone at the top of the hill to roll down the hill,

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get enough snow to become a big ball and then split into two to make another ball

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and then they would assemble at the bottom. It could happen randomly if you did enough times..

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That's what we're kind of doing in the lab. Setting up random snow balls to make.. Say, oh there's a snowman.

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There's a snowman.

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Can we try enough times throwing the stone down the hill, so gravity plus snow, roll, snowball, snowman.

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Now, the interesting thing is we need to make that simple enough.

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But then when the snowman is able to build itself, this is in the magic, this is when life starts,.

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so what is the minimum thing you can do to make something that can make itself? What is..

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It's like, how can you start the ball rolling quite literally. This is the bottom up, but that's very hard..

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We don't know where to search. You're quite right to be, not confused, but.. It's a big probability problem.

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How many lottery tickets do I have to play until I win? That's bottom up. Top down is me being in control.

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I'm building robots that I will control to build everything, like atom by atom.

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What we do is we then ask if we give the robot the instructions, we give it some knowledge, some information.

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We say to the robot, we say to one robot, "You're dumb. Make a molecule. Make a snowman. Keep going. How many goes.

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How many goes. How many goes." We take another robot and say, "Here's a picture of a snowman..

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Make it." The robot goes "ah, ah, ah, ah" made a Then when we look at the robot and say, "Okay,

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that's a really good snowman. We're now gonna remove some of that information, but we still want you to make a snowman.

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How much information can we take away?" This is top down.

201
00:18:50,001 --> 00:18:56,072
What we're trying to do is work out how much information do we need to know and how much can we find.

202
00:18:56,073 --> 00:19:08,529
There's a whole concept of information in biology, so there's a bit like how much randomness can we use?

203
00:19:08,530 --> 00:19:14,032
Or how much complexity can we get from our environment. It just goes back to an observation about biology. Biology..

204
00:19:14,087 --> 00:19:20,014
All living things are made of cells and in every cell there is DNA.

205
00:19:20,054 --> 00:19:31,017
The DNA allows the cell to evolve, but no DNA, no evolution. DNA is complicated, so where did the DNA come from?

206
00:19:31,048 --> 00:19:36,085
What we're trying to do is look at the robots to help us guess that. That's what we're doing in the lab.

207
00:19:36,086 --> 00:19:45,013
We have two extremes. We have the random plus get lucky and the no random, let's big brother it.

208
00:19:45,014 --> 00:19:49,009
We have our big brother robot that videos everything and orchestrates.

209
00:19:49,073 --> 00:19:57,011
We have the conductor and we have the free form no conductor.

210
00:19:57,012 --> 00:19:59,008
Speaker 2: Those two experiments you take on at the same time?

211
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Lee: They're going on in the group at the same time and we're using common people to look at the experiments, yeah.

212
00:20:08,000 --> 00:20:09,000
Speaker 2: Yeah.

213
00:20:09,001 --> 00:20:19,097
What can I imagine when I see this experiment or experiment, this research project with the luck.

214
00:20:20,051 --> 00:20:26,046
How do you manage to direct the luck.

215
00:20:26,047 --> 00:20:34,032
Lee: Here's the thing, one of the big top things that chemists are beginning to understand.. It's like spread betting.

216
00:20:35,042 --> 00:20:36,076
Spread betting.

217
00:20:36,096 --> 00:20:44,036
You go and bet on a horse, you could bet on the winner or the loser or you can spread on a variety of outcomes and say,

218
00:20:44,037 --> 00:20:45,070
"Right, I'll get money that way.

219
00:20:45,071 --> 00:20:49,071
I won't make money as fast, but I'll make money." If your objective is like, if I give you,

220
00:20:49,072 --> 00:20:52,001
I don't know how many euros or pounds and say, "Right.

221
00:20:52,028 --> 00:20:57,025
Your objective is to double your money in two hours." If you were lazy you could say, "Right.

222
00:20:57,026 --> 00:21:03,000
All on one horse," and you'd be dead or win very quickly.

223
00:21:03,001 --> 00:21:04,043
Or you say, "Okay, I'm not sure,

224
00:21:04,044 --> 00:21:12,093
but I'll make a spread." One of the things that we try to do is look at how we can look at the distribution of.

225
00:21:12,094 --> 00:21:21,005
different.. How we can spread our luck. You can do that by doing lots of things at once.

226
00:21:21,006 --> 00:21:27,054
What I'm trying to say is time is the enemy, because to get lucky you need to wait time.

227
00:21:27,073 --> 00:21:31,012
If you do one at a time it will take a long time.

228
00:21:31,013 --> 00:21:35,008
If you want to use the same amount of time to get lucky quickly, you spread bet.

229
00:21:35,009 --> 00:21:43,561
In my lab, we don't have that much time so we spread bet. It's like parallel..

230
00:21:43,562 --> 00:21:48,005
What we're trying to do is to say, "Okay, we want to set up a series of random experiments, but we want to"..

231
00:21:49,003 --> 00:21:55,070
Because we could do the experiment in one big, say, a swimming pool sized reactor.

232
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or we could do it in a very small cup or a test tube. Or we could do it in a smaller..

233
00:22:03,067 --> 00:22:07,006
If we have lots of small test tubes, then we could do lots of different experiments in the same space as, maybe,

234
00:22:07,007 --> 00:22:13,080
a swimming pool. Suddenly, one swimming pool could be cut up into one million or even more test tubes.

235
00:22:13,081 --> 00:22:16,097
Suddenly, we have a million goes where we had one.

236
00:22:17,041 --> 00:22:23,013
Now, take it into a droplet like an oil droplet you'd get in your salad dressing and we do all the experiments,

237
00:22:23,048 --> 00:22:25,097
one oil droplet per experiment.

238
00:22:25,098 --> 00:22:31,017
Suddenly, you can do a trillion experiments where you only had one, so you have a trillion goes.

239
00:22:31,082 --> 00:22:37,051
Then very quickly you could calculate how many times do I need to play the lottery before I get lucky.

240
00:22:37,085 --> 00:22:43,002
In the UK, I think a few weeks ago, to win the 33 million, the probability, I think,

241
00:22:43,013 --> 00:22:51,007
was something like 256 million to one. Cool. With a trillion I can do that over four times. Here I go. I win.

242
00:22:51,008 --> 00:22:56,091
I have four chances of winning in that experiment and that is how we do it.

243
00:22:56,092 --> 00:23:02,022
Speaker 2: Go on, but with the most important question. How do you define life?

244
00:23:02,023 --> 00:23:03,091
Lee: Okay.

245
00:23:03,092 --> 00:23:06,055
Before I define life, I'm going to define something else,

246
00:23:06,096 --> 00:23:11,098
because it will be really important to understand why definition is useful.

247
00:23:11,099 --> 00:23:15,001
Many scientists think that life can not be defined.

248
00:23:15,043 --> 00:23:22,005
I think that is unhelpful for trying to explain it to other people and also to try and get a concept,

249
00:23:22,006 --> 00:23:27,015
because sometimes defining a concept, you don't quite understand yet. The one I like is flight.

250
00:23:27,016 --> 00:23:34,099
Imagine before humans flew they said, "Right. What is flight?" You go outside and look at birds flying maybe.

251
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You might look at those squirrels that can glide or bumble bees. You can say, "Okay, I have this notion of flying.

252
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Some do work against gravity and they can move air and they go in the air." But

253
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when the first airplane was made by the Wright Brothers or whoever, because I don't know, they flew a few yards,

254
00:23:54,079 --> 00:24:01,045
so it wasn't very far. Then they went, "Oh. Flight is powered heavier than air travel.

255
00:24:01,046 --> 00:24:11,050
Not just balloon flight and because I could go 100 yards, now I worked out how I can go 1,000 yards..

256
00:24:11,051 --> 00:24:15,028
Then when I went 1,000 yards I went across the Atlantic and before you know it, we got".. We know what flight is.

257
00:24:15,029 --> 00:24:21,008
For me, flight is getting on an airplane, going up in the sky, coming down again safely,

258
00:24:21,047 --> 00:24:25,048
and being out of travel several thousand miles in the air without touching down.

259
00:24:25,049 --> 00:24:31,006
I think by framing it this way, if we define life in a similar way, it might help us,

260
00:24:31,007 --> 00:24:36,024
because now flight takes lots of different forms. We have rockets. We have planes. We have gliders.

261
00:24:36,069 --> 00:24:40,043
We may even have all sorts of other ways of doing. Helicopters.

262
00:24:41,002 --> 00:24:54,077
When it comes to what life is, life seems to be an object when you feed it it multiplies and that's one thing.

263
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Speaker 2: I'm sorry. I just don't-

264
00:24:56,011 --> 00:25:06,026
Lee: I will start with a very general, not very satisfactory concept, but it's basically an object that takes stuff,

265
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simple stuff, from the outside as food and can make itself replicate.

266
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A fancier way of saying it is a self-sustaining, it's a bit like a flame that can feed itself, thing that can,

267
00:25:23,043 --> 00:25:25,064
basically, that can evolve..

268
00:25:25,065 --> 00:25:40,004
Let's make it even more precise and just say life is a nontrivial self-sustaining thing in a big universe. Let me...

269
00:25:40,005 --> 00:25:48,046
There's a couple of scientifically.. Nontrivial means that it's not like a bit of sand. It's complicated.

270
00:25:48,047 --> 00:25:55,008
It means that you'd have to write down some lines in a book to write down what it is.

271
00:25:57,008 --> 00:26:01,094
Self-sustaining means it can keep going. That complex thing keeps going.

272
00:26:01,095 --> 00:26:12,008
It's a bit like, say, the storm on Jupiter that's been whirling around for these thousands of years in the universe.

273
00:26:13,098 --> 00:26:21,005
Now can you see that life, at that level, to me, has very little to do with chemistry and here is the problem:

274
00:26:21,006 --> 00:26:24,008
lots of people who are trying to make

275
00:26:24,009 --> 00:26:28,081
or understand the origin of life are being very specific in their chemical archeology,

276
00:26:28,082 --> 00:26:32,055
but I'm just looking for a process.

277
00:26:32,074 --> 00:26:42,016
I want to make the simplest object that will self-sustain itself be complicated and go around the universe.

278
00:26:43,001 --> 00:26:51,081
In my test tube, I want to make a blob or a cell that is able to make itself when you feed it food and is complicated.

279
00:26:52,013 --> 00:26:59,002
That just didn't randomly arise, because if I say life is salad dressing, like I shake some vinegar and some oil

280
00:26:59,003 --> 00:27:04,023
when I get a nice balsamic vinegar and I get this nice looking thing.

281
00:27:04,024 --> 00:27:11,074
Well, people will say, "Well, that looks like a life form, but it doesn't make itself. It's not complicated.

282
00:27:12,033 --> 00:27:19,037
It doesn't act on itself." A higher level definition of life, the one I like in the end,

283
00:27:20,013 --> 00:27:28,055
is one that can act on itself to change itself. What does that mean? Well, I'm ill. I've got a headache.

284
00:27:28,056 --> 00:27:37,001
I can go and I can pick up a pill and take it and cure my headache. I can do something from the outside to the inside.

285
00:27:37,002 --> 00:27:46,083
When you look in your environment, you don't see dead things purposefully moving around. We call this agency.

286
00:27:46,084 --> 00:27:55,053
It's almost a bit like a self-awareness. A sheep will go from grass to pasture to pasture.

287
00:27:55,054 --> 00:27:59,088
A dog will go and follow it's master, you know?

288
00:27:59,089 --> 00:28:05,042
There's like, there's inputs, but I think they're quite complicated things.

289
00:28:05,047 --> 00:28:14,007
I do like this idea of a complex thing that self-sustains in a big universe.

290
00:28:14,008 --> 00:28:16,007
Speaker 2: That can conserve itself.

291
00:28:16,008 --> 00:28:24,071
Lee: Yeah. It copies itself. Over time there's more of itself.

292
00:28:24,072 --> 00:28:30,031
Basically, it can take raw materials and become more complicated. I guess these are notions.

293
00:28:30,032 --> 00:28:36,083
It's a bit like flight, because everyone tends to fight about definitions about life, because, you know,

294
00:28:37,011 --> 00:28:41,002
we thought we could make a list of things, right. It needs to evolve. Like Darwin. Right..

295
00:28:41,003 --> 00:28:48,071
It needs to be based on carbon. Right. It needs to have water. Right. Needs to have a certain..

296
00:28:48,074 --> 00:28:53,006
Then you write this list and the problem is the list gets so long you forget why you're writing the list.

297
00:28:53,073 --> 00:28:58,008
I go back to flight and say, "What is it interesting about flight?" Well, for me, I want to get on my airplane.

298
00:28:58,009 --> 00:29:03,565
I want it to take off safely and travel several thousand miles, touch down and we get off..

299
00:29:03,566 --> 00:29:08,007
Refuel and go Although.. So flight means something to us.

300
00:29:09,055 --> 00:29:13,085
If I could make a new life form based on different chemistry that would be really interesting,

301
00:29:14,011 --> 00:29:19,007
because suddenly we don't have to say it's based on carbon or water, because suddenly,

302
00:29:19,008 --> 00:29:26,016
I'm now looking for a complex thing that's self-sustaining in a universe, but it doesn't have to be based on carbon

303
00:29:26,017 --> 00:29:29,007
or water. That's kind of where we're going at the moment.

304
00:29:29,008 --> 00:29:39,071
It's not a finished definition and may never will be, but think back before flight, before airplanes.

305
00:29:40,061 --> 00:29:42,000
We didn't have anything else to reference.

306
00:29:42,002 --> 00:29:50,046
Now, we could all agree if we went to see some objects a parachutist or whatever, what would be flying or not.

307
00:29:50,096 --> 00:29:57,089
I'm hoping that if we can make new life forms with different chemistry it would help us identify new life.

308
00:29:58,071 --> 00:30:02,000
Maybe there's other life forms on the earth that are very simple that we don't understand

309
00:30:02,001 --> 00:30:07,075
or we haven't recognized because they're too simple. We just ignore them..

310
00:30:07,076 --> 00:30:12,017
Speaker 2: But that's a big.. Giant leap ahead, I guess.

311
00:30:12,018 --> 00:30:19,028
Lee: I would say potentially, but maybe not. I think maybe not.

312
00:30:19,029 --> 00:30:23,074
Speaker 2: What are you actually doing in this lab? Just to prove that your guess is right..

313
00:30:23,075 --> 00:30:28,091
Lee: Well, I think that's a very important question. What we're trying to do..

314
00:30:29,002 --> 00:30:35,041
Many people are saying we need to design or we need to select a very special chemistry

315
00:30:35,042 --> 00:30:40,088
and only a very special chemistry can lead to life and biology.

316
00:30:41,002 --> 00:30:48,044
A very special chemistry living or a origin life in biology. I'm trying to say the other way around.

317
00:30:48,045 --> 00:30:56,045
Maybe the process is more important than the chemistry and the process selects the chemistry it needs to become alive.

318
00:30:56,046 --> 00:31:00,050
Baring that in mind, suddenly we go to the lab now, we're suddenly free.

319
00:31:00,051 --> 00:31:08,077
We don't just have to use DNA, amino acids, the things that you find in biology. We can use sand. We can use salt.

320
00:31:09,007 --> 00:31:10,007
We can use other stuff.

321
00:31:10,075 --> 00:31:17,081
What we're trying to do is take the simplest molecules, the simplest chemicals and shake them together

322
00:31:17,097 --> 00:31:25,002
and look for evidence that they will become complicated. To start to become self-sustaining.

323
00:31:25,003 --> 00:31:31,011
We want to look for phenomena like forming cells. We look for making machines.

324
00:31:31,073 --> 00:31:39,077
Look for evidence of complexity and so, if I could basically take some very simple molecules

325
00:31:39,078 --> 00:31:43,031
and they would turn themselves into a cell that could self-replicate

326
00:31:43,032 --> 00:31:52,005
and look like a bacterial cell under a microscope then that would be really interesting. One of the-

327
00:31:52,006 --> 00:32:01,072
Speaker 2: That means that you're right. If you find that, but you must have clue that you are going to find that...

328
00:32:01,073 --> 00:32:05,005
Lee: No. I don't.. No. I don't have any clue, but I think I'm right, because I think..

329
00:32:07,014 --> 00:32:10,041
If you think back to the early earth. Early earth was really crazy.

330
00:32:10,078 --> 00:32:17,084
Like, every day that goes by there's fire, there's brimstone, there's asteroids hitting, the water's being evaporated,

331
00:32:18,002 --> 00:32:22,047
there's lava coming out, the energy's really high, so any really,

332
00:32:22,078 --> 00:32:28,091
sexy sophisticated chemistry will be erased in a second. Or it would be erased..

333
00:32:28,092 --> 00:32:34,058
This is my epiphany that I saw maybe when I think about...

334
00:32:34,059 --> 00:32:40,029
Because I obviously like water, because I'm in Scotland and it's raining all the time, but if you look at..

335
00:32:40,041 --> 00:32:46,058
In the river or in the sea and you look at patterns and things and they're only there for a small moment in time.

336
00:32:47,084 --> 00:32:55,038
If the pattern was going to be erased really quickly, life is a pattern that doesn't get erased,

337
00:32:55,067 --> 00:33:02,055
it takes the outside and make a pattern and makes more of itself and replicates that pattern.

338
00:33:03,016 --> 00:33:05,092
Life is a bit like the Olympic flame.

339
00:33:05,093 --> 00:33:13,026
It's that organization that goes from thing to thing to thing in time and space that never gets erased,

340
00:33:13,082 --> 00:33:16,011
because it keeps being replicated.

341
00:33:17,008 --> 00:33:25,096
If that could happen on earth, I reasoned it has to happened much easier than we thought,

342
00:33:25,097 --> 00:33:32,003
because otherwise the complex chemistry would be erased by the meteorite, the water boiling, the fire and brimstone.

343
00:33:32,004 --> 00:33:40,008
My simple notion, if I'm being brutally honest, really honest, and I'm being really honest,

344
00:33:40,009 --> 00:33:47,028
because I don't have any cognitive reserve, is that I feel that life is far simpler than we could possibly imagine.

345
00:33:47,029 --> 00:33:53,042
I think we can recreate it in lots of different chemistries and there's no secret.

346
00:33:53,078 --> 00:34:01,023
There are lots of origins of life on planet earth, one origin of biology that we know today. There's lots of roots.

347
00:34:01,024 --> 00:34:07,031
There are lots of ways to make a life form and they all converged and they corporated and they ended up with DNA

348
00:34:07,074 --> 00:34:16,025
and proteins and ourselves as a compromise, if you like, between all the different extremes.

349
00:34:16,026 --> 00:34:25,015
Mini-disc player, iPod, tape cassette. All these different technologies that were competing..

350
00:34:25,016 --> 00:34:28,067
It was the same in chemistry, I think.. I almost say I believe.

351
00:34:28,092 --> 00:34:33,034
I guess it is a belief, because beliefs are those things that can't yet be tested.

352
00:34:33,035 --> 00:34:39,066
Obviously, I'm trying to turn that belief into a scientifically falsifiable set of experiments.

353
00:34:39,067 --> 00:34:44,076
We're going from two extremes. What I talk about top down with the robot doing it and the bottom up.

354
00:34:45,008 --> 00:34:49,026
Allowing it to happen and then videoing it. That's what we're looking for.

355
00:34:49,027 --> 00:34:58,060
We're looking for the simplest chemistry that can show evidence of becoming self-sustaining and complex.

356
00:34:58,061 --> 00:35:05,033
It's a bit like how simply can we make a fire that's able to go and find its own fuel.

357
00:35:05,034 --> 00:35:10,576
But this fire has a pattern, maybe it's not just a flame, but it's a word..

358
00:35:10,577 --> 00:35:15,043
Let's say the word "fire." Let's say the word fire can write fire and that word fire can go from..

359
00:35:15,057 --> 00:35:21,065
That's what we're looking for in the lab if that analogy makes sense. I can try think of a better one.

360
00:35:21,066 --> 00:35:27,075
Speaker 2: No. It makes sense. Very good. Very good..

361
00:35:27,076 --> 00:35:35,088
This is a very good explanation you gave right now, because of the.. I understand. I hope now the viewers do.

362
00:35:35,089 --> 00:35:47,047
Because of this element of complexity, some complexity is added and then things evolve

363
00:35:47,048 --> 00:35:54,005
and things start to develop and it still is a coincidence and it has various roots, various chemical roots.

364
00:35:54,006 --> 00:36:08,008
I understand it very much, but how do you try to catch this coincidence?

365
00:36:08,009 --> 00:36:15,008
Lee: I was just thinking about it when you were talking just there. It's like extreme trial and error.

366
00:36:15,009 --> 00:36:20,034
I'll tell you something, which I found one of the most beautiful things I've ever done as a parent

367
00:36:20,035 --> 00:36:26,032
or my wife has done as a parent, it was a gift we were given, which was, basically, grow your own butterfly.

368
00:36:27,019 --> 00:36:30,087
You have this kit where you have these things that turn into caterpillars and they have their own food

369
00:36:30,088 --> 00:36:35,001
and they go around you watch them go through the process. The caterpillars eat the food.

370
00:36:35,005 --> 00:36:42,031
They then make chrysalis and you put them in a little net and they go up and they're ready

371
00:36:42,032 --> 00:36:47,067
and after some time the butterflies come out. But when we did it, we had five.

372
00:36:47,095 --> 00:36:50,047
We were really emotionally attached and the kids were like,

373
00:36:50,048 --> 00:36:58,083
"Look at this butterfly it's coming." The fifth one got tangled in its silk and it never made it free. It died..

374
00:36:58,084 --> 00:37:02,006
We were so.. We were trying to cut it free and we were so upset.

375
00:37:02,007 --> 00:37:07,012
Then we were like, "Ah, that is the perfect thing about life. It's trial and error.

376
00:37:07,013 --> 00:37:13,014
Those that survive continue." If you think about trial and error,

377
00:37:13,029 --> 00:37:20,092
life is nothing more than matter that helps itself through trial and error.

378
00:37:20,093 --> 00:37:25,069
It's a bit like the selfish gene but it's more primal than that. It's more simple.

379
00:37:26,007 --> 00:37:36,087
To put simply, what is the simplest sand or dirt or rocks that can help other rocks get better?

380
00:37:37,003 --> 00:37:39,049
What is the definition of better?

381
00:37:39,095 --> 00:37:43,089
The problem with life though or the nice thing about life as you were talking earlier and, again,

382
00:37:43,090 --> 00:37:49,091
it's complicated now, but for something to be alive, it has to die. There's quite a simple thing.

383
00:37:50,041 --> 00:37:58,008
You will know when, let's say a bacterium is alive and is dead. When it's dead, it's no longer able to grow, reproduce.

384
00:37:58,009 --> 00:38:04,034
You know when the bacteria, if you feed it food ever 20 minutes, it splits into two, into two, into two.

385
00:38:04,035 --> 00:38:06,048
It's really interesting, that point.

386
00:38:06,049 --> 00:38:12,097
That bacterium, let's just imagine a bacterium, and then in 20 minutes does this, so I ask you a question,

387
00:38:13,097 --> 00:38:19,071
in your stomach, in your intestine you have lovely bacteria that look after you or you have your bacteria,

388
00:38:19,072 --> 00:38:24,033
whatever you want to call them, your microbiome, how old are the bacteria in your intestine?

389
00:38:24,034 --> 00:38:26,008
Speaker 2: I really have no idea.

390
00:38:26,009 --> 00:38:31,060
Lee: I would say roughly 3.9 billion years,.

391
00:38:31,061 --> 00:38:36,073
because that bacteria came from one bacteria that came from one bacteria that came..

392
00:38:36,074 --> 00:38:47,011
There is a Olympic torch of information passed back to what we call LUCA the Last Universal Common Ancestor.

393
00:38:47,012 --> 00:38:47,094
Isn't that wonderful?

394
00:38:47,095 --> 00:38:48,059
Speaker 2: LUCA.

395
00:38:48,060 --> 00:38:56,000
Lee: The Last Universal Common Ancestor. It's from the cell from which all other cells on earth originated.

396
00:38:56,001 --> 00:39:00,036
It's that Olympic torch that was then copied,

397
00:39:00,037 --> 00:39:05,022
but it wasn't just one Olympic torch that was carried from athlete to athlete, they copied it.

398
00:39:05,023 --> 00:39:12,036
It's a bit like then suddenly copying a photograph or, I don't know, something that goes viral on the internet.

399
00:39:12,054 --> 00:39:20,044
Everyone watching it. That bacteria in your intestine is billions of years old.

400
00:39:20,083 --> 00:39:26,006
You are billions of years old, because where do you come from? You come from your parents. Where do they come from?

401
00:39:26,007 --> 00:39:27,056
Their parents. Where do they come from?

402
00:39:27,057 --> 00:39:34,044
Then for evolution before then, maybe from the primates and then from before that and all that way back.

403
00:39:34,045 --> 00:39:40,061
Isn't that interesting that you persist in time, but you die?

404
00:39:41,043 --> 00:39:44,005
And so, okay, it's different for bacteria, because they never quite die.

405
00:39:44,006 --> 00:39:49,003
They split into two, split into two, but it's a changing cycle.

406
00:39:49,004 --> 00:39:53,048
It's just trial and error and so it's another way of sending up what's the minimum trial

407
00:39:53,049 --> 00:40:01,008
and error I can set up to carry on going? I still, I don't know, to be honest, I don't know what it means.

408
00:40:01,009 --> 00:40:08,088
People say, "Well, what is it?" I'm like, "Well, I kind of know what I'm looking for or I'll know when I see it,

409
00:40:09,063 --> 00:40:14,002
but what I need to do right now is start with really simple chemistry in the lab

410
00:40:14,003 --> 00:40:22,003
and I need to watch it like a hawk until suddenly something really odd happens and I go 'There are the events.

411
00:40:22,039 --> 00:40:29,027
Those events are responsible for the origin of life or maybe a new life form.'" I guess it's really that is it.

412
00:40:29,055 --> 00:40:36,048
What I'm doing is actually extremely simple. I'm just playing dice. Keep rolling the dice, rolling the dice.

413
00:40:36,076 --> 00:40:43,000
I want, basically, not just to get one six, but six sixes in a row and then I want to keep going

414
00:40:43,001 --> 00:40:53,021
and then I want to preserve the motion I last played to get those six sixes in a row.

415
00:40:53,022 --> 00:41:07,006
Speaker 2: Very good. I understand this very well now. Practically, how do you do this in your lab?

416
00:41:07,007 --> 00:41:09,001
I mean, I'm sorry, I would like you to tell about "Well, we have this machine, a robot-"

417
00:41:09,002 --> 00:41:09,041
Lee: Yup. Yup. We have two ways.

418
00:41:09,047 --> 00:41:16,032
Because I do a lot of inorganic chemistry, I assemble really complex molecules from simple molecules.

419
00:41:19,097 --> 00:41:28,055
The way I do this is I add acid to salt. Normally, it's boring, but in my lab, we can make it be interesting.

420
00:41:28,056 --> 00:41:30,006
That's what we're doing right now.

421
00:41:30,017 --> 00:41:40,024
We're looking at how to make the most complicated molecules with the least instructions. With the robot, the same.

422
00:41:40,025 --> 00:41:45,023
We are giving it some chemistry to do, but we're saying, "What about if we give you the least instructions?

423
00:41:45,024 --> 00:41:49,066
What is the most interesting thing you can do with the least instructions?" Then when it does nothing,

424
00:41:49,067 --> 00:41:54,069
which it does at the moment, we say, "Okay, I give in. I give you the full instructions.

425
00:41:55,059 --> 00:42:03,012
What happens when you have all the instructions? What can you then do?" That's what we've done.

426
00:42:03,013 --> 00:42:05,025
I'll show this in the laboratory.

427
00:42:05,026 --> 00:42:07,015
We've made a robot that you can give it instructions

428
00:42:07,016 --> 00:42:15,007
and it gives really complex oil droplets that look like they're alive, but they're not alive, they just move a lot.

429
00:42:15,027 --> 00:42:21,018
They were orchestrated. It was a cheat. A set up. A bribe, whatever.

430
00:42:21,019 --> 00:42:27,043
Then we say, "Okay, because we know what instructions we need to do to make the droplets look alive,

431
00:42:28,046 --> 00:42:37,004
how can we now move the information from the robot to the chemistry?" It's a bit like this,

432
00:42:37,005 --> 00:42:45,055
we are saying we want the robot to write Shakespeare or the equivalent complex poetry song.

433
00:42:46,067 --> 00:42:51,094
Now, because the robot's dumb. It doesn't know Shakespeare, so we have to tell it Shakespeare, so it just copies it.

434
00:42:51,095 --> 00:42:55,062
Then if we blot out certain amounts of Shakespeare we say, "Okay,

435
00:42:55,063 --> 00:42:59,007
write Shakespeare with these small fragments." Then when we say, "Right.

436
00:42:59,008 --> 00:43:02,092
Okay, now you know Shakespeare, but learn a little bit of english

437
00:43:02,093 --> 00:43:05,021
and see if you can make something that sounds like Shakespeare.

438
00:43:05,022 --> 00:43:11,008
What do you need to go through to make that?" I think that's what we're trying to do...

439
00:43:11,009 --> 00:43:17,087
I know it sounds kind of intangible. It's like still.. You're kind of expecting me now...

440
00:43:17,088 --> 00:43:23,099
What we are doing in the lab, which is even to start somewhere that..

441
00:43:25,094 --> 00:43:29,090
What we are doing in the lab to start somewhere simple is we say, "Right.

442
00:43:29,091 --> 00:43:35,003
Biology's made up with carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, sulfur

443
00:43:35,077 --> 00:43:40,046
and some other metals." What we're doing is we're putting these elements together

444
00:43:40,047 --> 00:43:45,036
and we're zapping them with electricity and we're heating them. What do they form?

445
00:43:45,037 --> 00:43:52,098
We're taking hydrogen, methane, ammonia and water and we're doing a very classic experiment.

446
00:43:52,099 --> 00:43:57,013
It was first done in the 1950s called the Miller-Urey Experiment.

447
00:43:57,014 --> 00:44:05,056
They got two electrodes to simulate lightning and they got this simple soup and they heated it. Very simple.

448
00:44:05,074 --> 00:44:08,054
Very simple elements. Very simple molecules.

449
00:44:09,001 --> 00:44:14,015
What they got when they did it, and they did it for four or five days, that in the end, in that soup,

450
00:44:14,016 --> 00:44:21,037
in the primordial soup they got some oil, so it looked like gloopy crude oil, but they saw some acids in it,

451
00:44:21,038 --> 00:44:23,072
some molecules that look like amino acids.

452
00:44:23,073 --> 00:44:29,011
They got really excited, because amino acids are what you find in biology in your proteins..

453
00:44:29,012 --> 00:44:36,000
They are the simplest molecules. Everyone went, "Ah. The problem is solved. Just methane, nitrogen"..

454
00:44:36,003 --> 00:44:41,050
Sorry, "Just methane and hydrogen and ammonia and some flame and some fire

455
00:44:41,051 --> 00:44:48,073
and you can make amino acids." Those amino acids are really simple. They're in really low concentrations.

456
00:44:48,074 --> 00:44:58,041
There's a very small amount, so even though people have tried to, since the 1950s, almost the last 65, 66 years,

457
00:44:58,072 --> 00:45:03,071
people try to turn those amino acids into proteins and they have failed.

458
00:45:03,072 --> 00:45:12,024
What we have just done in the last year is we've made a robot that takes those simple amino acids.

459
00:45:12,025 --> 00:45:21,007
and does random chemistry with amino acids and we've seen how primitive proteins can emerge.. Or they're not proteins.

460
00:45:22,016 --> 00:45:27,096
I must be honest. They're protein-like, but they can emerge from the random chemistry.

461
00:45:27,097 --> 00:45:28,084
Speaker 2: So you have a clue.

462
00:45:28,085 --> 00:45:32,022
Lee: We have a clue and we used a robot to do it.

463
00:45:32,034 --> 00:45:36,050
I realized the question you're asking, because "What? You use sand. I'm bored of sand.

464
00:45:36,051 --> 00:45:45,046
I'm bored of salt. What are you doing? Hydrogen, carbon, ammonia, some flame, amino acids.

465
00:45:45,047 --> 00:45:52,070
Really simple building blocks. Those building blocks we then put into a robot to basically shake in a different way-

466
00:45:52,071 --> 00:45:56,045
Speaker 2: What's the difference between you and this year, 50-year experiment?

467
00:45:56,046 --> 00:46:05,026
Lee: Very important thing is that we then take the material from the Miller-Urey experiment,.

468
00:46:05,027 --> 00:46:14,044
which was just in a vessel and we then use an algorithm to order the..

469
00:46:15,001 --> 00:46:21,550
To simulate lots of different environments, because in a bell jar there was no sand, there was no earth's crust,.

470
00:46:21,551 --> 00:46:28,067
it was just.. It was sanitized. It was dead. It wasn't complicated enough. The earth was quite complicated.

471
00:46:28,068 --> 00:46:34,045
There were minerals, there's the surface, there was some atmosphere..

472
00:46:34,046 --> 00:46:38,002
What we did was we put everything into different building blocks.. Sorry, I'll start again.

473
00:46:38,058 --> 00:46:42,072
We put everything into different vessels and we treated it a different way.

474
00:46:42,073 --> 00:46:46,045
We did lots of random experiments and we looked for organization.

475
00:46:46,096 --> 00:46:52,008
What we did was we made a massively parallel Miller-Urey combination.

476
00:46:52,009 --> 00:46:59,044
We took the building blocks in the Miller-Urey and we divided it into literally 1,000 different pots.

477
00:47:00,047 --> 00:47:04,036
This is like how do you make a cake from random recipe, random ingredients?

478
00:47:04,066 --> 00:47:08,036
Well, you could randomly throw them together and just do one oven and you'd make nothing.

479
00:47:08,072 --> 00:47:14,047
Or you could get somewhere where you make a dough and you say, "Okay, I'll put it into 1,000 cake pots

480
00:47:16,007 --> 00:47:22,028
and put them in the oven and see, which rise and select the ones, which rise and look nice." That's what we did.

481
00:47:22,029 --> 00:47:26,541
Speaker 2: Looks like, sounds like enigma machine...

482
00:47:26,542 --> 00:47:30,039
Lee: Yeah. It's exactly an enigma.. You are.. This is really good.

483
00:47:30,077 --> 00:47:35,071
Here's the thing, the enigma machine was a code breaking machine

484
00:47:35,072 --> 00:47:39,057
and I look like the origin of life is an enigma machine.

485
00:47:39,058 --> 00:47:44,002
The code, the code that came from the enemy was in the environment.

486
00:47:44,003 --> 00:47:50,046
Everyone could see it, but the sequence, the DNA if you'd like, was not known.

487
00:47:51,001 --> 00:48:00,004
We had to find that random code by guessing or to plug it in. If we plug it in we know the solution instantly.

488
00:48:00,005 --> 00:48:04,032
Or if we guess we have to take many, many goes. That's exactly it.

489
00:48:04,039 --> 00:48:11,053
You could view the origin of life like an enigma machine and we just do not know the cipher.

490
00:48:12,026 --> 00:48:15,036
WE don't know the key, sorry, to type in.

491
00:48:15,037 --> 00:48:21,045
Actually, I said this to a complexity theorist who's interested in decryption and encryption and he said, "Yeah,

492
00:48:21,046 --> 00:48:27,025
it's right." In fact, if we know all the program on earth by knowing the life form

493
00:48:27,026 --> 00:48:33,056
or knowing how we can work backwards and work out the keys and it's a bit like how you do encryption today.

494
00:48:34,021 --> 00:48:35,078
You could view it like that.

495
00:48:36,082 --> 00:48:46,033
Life suddenly, even though I'm a chemist, life suddenly takes on a meaning that is not based on chemistry..

496
00:48:46,034 --> 00:48:49,053
It's in information. What about..

497
00:48:49,072 --> 00:48:55,046
What is now the magic information I can give you to go away and build a whole new society.

498
00:48:55,047 --> 00:49:02,006
I've sent you to Mars, which one book would you take to make oxygen, water. Have you seen The Martian?

499
00:49:02,007 --> 00:49:04,041
Maybe we shouldn't talk about films in this.

500
00:49:04,042 --> 00:49:07,004
Speaker 2: No. No I haven't seen it, but I'm certainly

501
00:49:07,005 --> 00:49:09,023
Lee: Here's an interesting thing.

502
00:49:09,055 --> 00:49:20,014
In the end, the way human beings escape planet earth, is they will send out robots that will go to other planets

503
00:49:20,073 --> 00:49:21,086
and they will look for resource

504
00:49:21,087 --> 00:49:28,007
and they will turn that resource into a living algorithm to make more of itself to make a living machines.

505
00:49:29,077 --> 00:49:33,012
That's what we'll do. I guess.

506
00:49:33,013 --> 00:49:39,007
Speaker 2: That makes you the new, I forgot his name, the man who cracked the enigma code.

507
00:49:39,008 --> 00:49:41,045
Lee: Turing?

508
00:49:41,046 --> 00:49:42,008
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.

509
00:49:42,009 --> 00:49:52,080
Lee: Well, I mean, a lot of the work we're doing is inspired by Turing..

510
00:49:52,081 --> 00:49:57,007
Turing, given what just happened today, I'm not sure I want to talk..

511
00:49:57,008 --> 00:50:00,072
Turing and Boltzmann both committed suicide.

512
00:50:00,073 --> 00:50:04,072
Boltzmann committed suicide because no one understood what he was talking about

513
00:50:04,073 --> 00:50:08,073
and was really shunned by the environment, shunned by the society.

514
00:50:08,074 --> 00:50:15,068
Turing committed suicide for reasons that are complicated. He was homosexual. He was victimized. He was bullied..

515
00:50:15,069 --> 00:50:18,006
He was pushed out. He had.. Anyway.

516
00:50:18,007 --> 00:50:25,071
Turing really inspired, both Turing and Boltzmann inspire me, not because they committed suicide,

517
00:50:25,072 --> 00:50:34,017
but because they really had very interesting handles on a very complex problem. Boltzmann talked about disorder.

518
00:50:34,019 --> 00:50:40,001
He knew about randomness and he worked out this thing, this measure of randomness called entropy.

519
00:50:40,002 --> 00:50:46,081
Basically, my kids, when they go into their bedroom they go and if they're entropy is high, i.e.

520
00:50:46,082 --> 00:50:52,015
If it's very random, they've worked hard and made it random. It's like what happens when heat goes out.

521
00:50:52,048 --> 00:50:55,081
If I go in and I order everything, I decrease the entropy.

522
00:50:56,028 --> 00:51:01,015
So I then, the nice thing while I decrease the entropy, I give it chance to be disordered again.

523
00:51:01,016 --> 00:51:06,098
Turing understood this also, but in a different way. He came up with an idea called morphogenesis.

524
00:51:07,043 --> 00:51:15,018
When I go running now, when I'm thinking for years, for me, what has inspired me, what drives me and, I think that,

525
00:51:15,056 --> 00:51:20,052
because of course everyone says to me sometimes when they're making fun, I don't have any original ideas.

526
00:51:20,053 --> 00:51:25,054
I'm desperate to have an original ideas. Maybe I haven't yet. It's just the synthesis of other people's ideas..

527
00:51:25,055 --> 00:51:31,032
For me, I want to come up with chemistry that undergoes morphogenesis. If I can..

528
00:51:31,048 --> 00:51:40,036
Morphogenesis is like an object that can change shape and change function, but still be itself.

529
00:51:40,085 --> 00:51:46,044
I guess, what I would say to maybe the viewer, is like, what defines yourself?

530
00:51:47,022 --> 00:51:51,072
You wouldn't go out and look at a rock and say, "Oh, that's a self," but you would go out and look at a deer

531
00:51:51,073 --> 00:51:55,053
or a goat or a child or an animal and say, "Oh, that's a self.

532
00:51:55,054 --> 00:52:02,093
It controls." A living thing is a thing, which can then actually observe itself and walk and talk and move.

533
00:52:02,094 --> 00:52:08,033
IT's not only that, because bacteria can't walk and talk and move in the same way.

534
00:52:08,034 --> 00:52:10,085
They certainly move, but it's more crude.

535
00:52:12,012 --> 00:52:17,094
There is something interesting about what Turing thought about decryption, decryption and computers and robots

536
00:52:17,095 --> 00:52:18,072
and so on.

537
00:52:19,009 --> 00:52:25,067
In the end, I'm pretty sure that human beings will be able to make a robot that will be able to make itself,

538
00:52:27,047 --> 00:52:35,091
but I'm anxious that we don't forget the origin of life, because one day, maybe-

539
00:52:35,092 --> 00:52:36,004
Speaker 2: in this robot.

540
00:52:36,005 --> 00:52:41,083
Lee: Well, maybe. Here's a story. Let's imagine that human beings are long gone and there are only robots.

541
00:52:42,032 --> 00:52:47,005
The robots make themselves and the robots go to another planet and there's a robot society

542
00:52:47,041 --> 00:52:58,041
and there's a super nova that erases the memory. The robots forget where they come from.

543
00:52:58,042 --> 00:53:01,084
"Where do we come from?" So they start the origin of robot life.

544
00:53:01,085 --> 00:53:05,052
They're grinding silicon chips up in beakers like, "Where did the chip come from?

545
00:53:05,053 --> 00:53:14,097
It's not self assembling." And they forget that they're a complex machine made by a more simple machine made by a more

546
00:53:15,014 --> 00:53:16,052
simple machine.

547
00:53:17,054 --> 00:53:21,033
If I can tell you anything today, which I think for me I can't really justify,

548
00:53:21,034 --> 00:53:31,092
but my feeling is life started with a minimal machine that can make a slightly more complicated machine that can make a

549
00:53:31,093 --> 00:53:36,055
slightly more complicated machine and so, yes, it's turtles all the way down,

550
00:53:36,056 --> 00:53:41,062
but they're simpler until the turtle right at the bottom is just sand and water.

551
00:53:41,063 --> 00:53:48,046
At the end we have, I don't know, pornography.

552
00:53:48,047 --> 00:53:53,015
Well, because, you know, this is like I say one of my friends who's looking at robot culture.

553
00:53:53,016 --> 00:53:59,072
That's the ultimate, the ultimate form of a robot culture will be robot pornography that they all share.

554
00:53:59,073 --> 00:54:04,068
But maybe, you don't want to put this in the main movie, I don't know, the main documentary.

555
00:54:04,093 --> 00:54:11,016
I think your comment about Turing is very perceptive. I'm certainly inspired by him.

556
00:54:11,017 --> 00:54:14,009
I'm certainly inspired by a lot of people that looked at informatics.

557
00:54:14,091 --> 00:54:21,083
I think I'm one of the first synthetic chemists to be sufficiently inspired by information and say,.

558
00:54:21,084 --> 00:54:23,088
"How can I do minimum..

559
00:54:24,026 --> 00:54:30,081
How can I come up with the minimum information, but get the maximum chemistry?" One of the things we're doing

560
00:54:30,082 --> 00:54:38,023
and where we're going and how I kind of got to this is we're trying to discover new drugs in my lab and make new drugs.

561
00:54:38,041 --> 00:54:46,049
If the viewer's completely confused about molecules and drugs and life, I'll give you one interesting thing..

562
00:54:46,050 --> 00:54:54,001
I don't know if you know about the antibiotic problem.. Can beat the drug.

563
00:54:54,003 --> 00:54:56,004
They can out-evolve using natural selection.

564
00:54:56,005 --> 00:55:00,042
The drug doesn't use natural selection, so it relies on the human being to make a new drug.

565
00:55:00,058 --> 00:55:01,032
IN my lab,

566
00:55:01,075 --> 00:55:08,003
one of the reasons we want to make an artificial life form is if we can make drugs that are in competition with the

567
00:55:08,004 --> 00:55:14,059
bacteria and we say, "Right. Here's a new bacteria. Here's a new drug. Dead. Oh, no.

568
00:55:15,000 --> 00:55:19,047
I evolve." All we do now is there's no such thing as antibiotic.

569
00:55:19,048 --> 00:55:28,035
There's only a generation of new antibiotics that can be made under pressure by the bacteria.

570
00:55:28,036 --> 00:55:34,016
Suddenly we change the entire concept of an obsolescent drug.

571
00:55:34,074 --> 00:55:39,060
No antibiotics become obsolete because we have an evolutionary machine.

572
00:55:39,061 --> 00:55:44,038
At the very worst, what we have made in my lab, it's not very good so don't get excited,

573
00:55:44,039 --> 00:55:45,094
we haven't cured the antibiotic problem,

574
00:55:45,095 --> 00:55:51,098
but we have made an evolution machine that starts to show us how we can make some drugs evolve

575
00:55:53,009 --> 00:55:58,061
and beat some antibiotics. When they out evolve the drugs we do it again and keep going.

576
00:55:58,081 --> 00:56:05,072
Our dream is to make a machine that can evolve an endless, infinite pipeline of drugs.

577
00:56:06,084 --> 00:56:13,082
When we understand that process, maybe, we can understand how the life got started,

578
00:56:14,008 --> 00:56:19,071
because it's an information-based argument. I'm going to express myself, "Isn't it wonderful the universe exists.

579
00:56:19,072 --> 00:56:25,000
Look at the glorious things that happened." One of the reasons why I'm doing what I'm doing is because I'm paid to ask

580
00:56:25,001 --> 00:56:25,010
why.

581
00:56:25,011 --> 00:56:27,005
Speaker 2: we do as well. We also get paid to ask

582
00:56:27,006 --> 00:56:31,063
Lee: Isn't that a wonderful privilege?

583
00:56:31,064 --> 00:56:45,017
That is one of the reasons why I try and engage to tell people and why I try not to be arrogant about it,.

584
00:56:45,018 --> 00:56:52,036
because I don't feel a sense of arrogance. I feel.. Where I come from is a sense of profound dumbness.

585
00:56:52,037 --> 00:57:05,014
A profound insecurity about understanding myself and why I'm here, but I like to be creative and so, you know,

586
00:57:05,015 --> 00:57:06,055
it's a privilege to do it.

587
00:57:06,068 --> 00:57:15,017
If I can come up with, like we talked about the antibiotics earlier, a societal excuse, not to validate it,

588
00:57:15,018 --> 00:57:20,033
but if I can turn the idea into something really cool that could change humanity or be useful,

589
00:57:20,034 --> 00:57:27,053
then I think that's really excellent. One of the things, that's one I want, is obviously I want to solve the problem.

590
00:57:27,054 --> 00:57:34,057
I want to make sure I'm useful and I want to understand more about the process. It's all kind of complicated.

591
00:57:34,058 --> 00:57:37,043
It's kind of woven together.

592
00:57:37,044 --> 00:57:47,021
Speaker 2: Is it the part I want to do good and I want to be clever and I want to be important? What is it?

593
00:57:47,022 --> 00:57:47,052
What kind of mix is it?

594
00:57:47,053 --> 00:57:59,084
Lee: No. When I was at school and the teachers told me I was never going to really make it beyond anything.

595
00:57:59,085 --> 00:58:06,094
They said, "You're just not going to make it. You're not smart." They used to say "You're pretending to be smart.

596
00:58:06,095 --> 00:58:10,046
Stop pretending to be smart." I was like, "Well, what do you mean?" They said, "Well,

597
00:58:10,047 --> 00:58:15,006
you're pretending to read." I'm like, "Okay." "You're pretending to do maths that we don't understand".

598
00:58:15,007 --> 00:58:16,057
or "You're pretending"..

599
00:58:16,079 --> 00:58:23,046
"I got the book out of the library." They were like, "Stop trying to fool us." I was like,

600
00:58:24,007 --> 00:58:29,060
"Surely it would be more worth it to fool you than just to do it, so if I was successfully fooling you,

601
00:58:29,061 --> 00:58:33,071
wouldn't that mean I'm even smarter than just being able to do it?" They were like,

602
00:58:33,072 --> 00:58:42,005
"just go away." I think that's one of the reasons why I can deal with imposter syndrome.

603
00:58:42,006 --> 00:58:47,097
A lot of people in science or anything who are good at stuff, athletes, everybody, in fact, all of us. We're all imposters to some degree.

604
00:58:48,044 --> 00:58:54,009
I mean, do we feel good enough? NO, but that's why we try and do better.

605
00:58:54,038 --> 00:59:01,024
I've become comfortable about people telling me I'm not going to succeed. That doesn't mean I shouldn't try.

606
00:59:01,025 --> 00:59:06,071
That's a very nice thing. No one thinks I'm going to succeed to make a new life form in my laboratory.

607
00:59:06,072 --> 00:59:13,046
I don't think you'll find anyone that believes I'm going to succeed, but probably I will.

608
00:59:14,041 --> 00:59:17,055
For the simple reason, not for the complicated one.

609
00:59:18,043 --> 00:59:22,061
The simple reason is because it's obvious and easy and not that complicated and going on already.

610
00:59:23,064 --> 00:59:30,014
Not for this I'm a magician who knows something they don't and I'm so incredibly smart and I'm this hidden genius.

611
00:59:30,015 --> 00:59:31,047
Clearly I'm not.

612
00:59:31,048 --> 00:59:37,097
Speaker 2: But you still think you will create life in what time?

613
00:59:37,098 --> 00:59:43,016
Lee: I made a mistake a few years ago when I gave a talk, at TED, you know, when you're trying to give these TED talks,

614
00:59:43,017 --> 00:59:50,051
these sound bite talks. They are a privilege to give and great, but you feel like you want to time bound it.

615
00:59:50,052 --> 00:59:58,036
I gave a time it would take once we knew what we were doing. I reckon we could do it quickly. A few years.

616
00:59:58,037 --> 01:00:06,072
Then that kind of got misunderstood as, "Oh, you'll do it in two or three or four years." I don't know.

617
01:00:06,073 --> 01:00:13,044
Will we make progress in one, two, three, four, five, 10 years? I would hope so. Can I put a limit on it?

618
01:00:13,045 --> 01:00:16,085
No, because I don't want to raise expectations,

619
01:00:17,016 --> 01:00:23,030
but I think right now it would be nice within the next 10 years to know how hard the problem was.

620
01:00:23,031 --> 01:00:30,061
Let's say, if I can't do it in a decade or two or if I can't convince other people to help me,

621
01:00:30,094 --> 01:00:37,004
because I think it's beyond me. I'm not capable of solving this problem alone. That's what I've realized.

622
01:00:37,005 --> 01:00:45,049
But maybe I'm capable of building a cooperative network to make a, basically, a large hadron collider of chemistry

623
01:00:45,061 --> 01:00:53,094
and make a chemical internet so that all chemists can explain their chemistry to each other and work together.

624
01:00:54,003 --> 01:01:01,021
If I can't do it, but they can't do it, so suddenly I then crowd source chemistry through all my other labs.

625
01:01:01,025 --> 01:01:06,012
My competitors become cooperative and maybe that's a way to look at it.

626
01:01:06,047 --> 01:01:10,008
To turn it into a big cooperative endeavor and we realize it's beyond one of us.

627
01:01:10,009 --> 01:01:13,005
Speaker 2: I'm sure I'm right, my instinct says I'm right.

628
01:01:13,006 --> 01:01:13,800
Lee: Yeah.

629
01:01:14,000 --> 01:01:14,053
Speaker 2: Then you have

630
01:01:14,054 --> 01:01:22,015
Lee: Look, I'm right. Okay. If you want me to level with you, I can't tell you why I'm right. I'm right.

631
01:01:24,023 --> 01:01:29,011
My job is, quite rightly, as a skeptic, should go "No, Lee.

632
01:01:29,022 --> 01:01:38,052
Actually, you're not right until you demonstrate the theory, the experiment and the critique and you carry on

633
01:01:38,053 --> 01:01:44,072
and you let everyone else judge. And your peers will judge if you're right..

634
01:01:44,073 --> 01:01:49,087
You won't." In a way, the nice thing for me is I like.. I say, "I don't have to be right. I don't have to be wrong.

635
01:01:49,088 --> 01:01:53,018
I just have to do it." I say, "Here's my assumption.

636
01:01:53,063 --> 01:01:57,073
Here are my experiments," because you know what, when people believe they're right

637
01:01:57,074 --> 01:02:05,008
and they just think everyone else is "Oh, how dare you give me a criticism. I'm right.

638
01:02:05,009 --> 01:02:10,088
You're just too stupid to understand" or "You don't understand this" or "You don't know that." There's something wrong.

639
01:02:10,089 --> 01:02:20,006
I see this all the time. My job is to say, "Honestly, as much as possible, here are my starting points.

640
01:02:20,014 --> 01:02:24,023
Here are my rules for my experiment. Now I throw my die.

641
01:02:24,024 --> 01:02:29,069
Look how the experiment unfolds and all I want you to do is go, 'Wow,

642
01:02:29,087 --> 01:02:35,068
that's interesting.'" If I can get you to do that, it doesn't matter if I'm right or wrong, I will take a holiday or...

643
01:02:36,055 --> 01:02:37,074
Glory in discovery.

644
01:02:37,075 --> 01:02:40,093
All I want to do more than anything else, the reason I'm doing this,

645
01:02:40,094 --> 01:02:47,091
the reason I think I'm right is I want to discover the process or the phenomena.

646
01:02:47,092 --> 01:02:53,068
or the thing that it is that turns dead chemistry to living chemistry. That, for me..

647
01:02:54,006 --> 01:03:03,035
I suppose I know I'm going to discover something is probably more what I can say with certainty rather than I know I'm

648
01:03:03,036 --> 01:03:06,005
right. That's why, I guess, what I'm trying to say in the end, I don't know if I'm going to be right.

649
01:03:06,006 --> 01:03:11,094
Maybe I will never be proven right or wrong in my lifetime, because we won't have the tools or it's a near miss,

650
01:03:11,095 --> 01:03:18,026
but I lack the intellect, maybe I'm not smart enough. Maybe the computers are not fast enough.

651
01:03:18,049 --> 01:03:21,073
The time is not long enough. But if I can start with sand

652
01:03:23,076 --> 01:03:31,040
and turn it into an object that starts to do something by itself when I feed it a fuel and you go, "Wow.

653
01:03:31,041 --> 01:03:40,005
Let's look at that again." And you see that spark of life in that previously dead object, that's really cool.

654
01:03:40,006 --> 01:03:48,052
What I think I might have been able to do is when they spark and lives are set up, those sparks of life,

655
01:03:48,053 --> 01:03:53,092
those living things, can do stuff that dead things can't do.

656
01:03:53,093 --> 01:04:00,025
They make artifacts, a bit like a caveman, or me,

657
01:04:00,026 --> 01:04:07,008
would make a complex object that if you found in your backyard 1,000 years later you'd go, "Well, naturally occurring

658
01:04:07,009 --> 01:04:18,024
or someone made that." I think I have come up with a thing, an algorithm as I would call it, a measure of made upness.

659
01:04:19,004 --> 01:04:29,045
If I showed you a thing, an object, you could tell me using my rules whether a living system, a life form, made it

660
01:04:29,046 --> 01:04:30,021
or not.

661
01:04:30,022 --> 01:04:35,062
That is what I'm most excited about right now, because that seems to be working in my head

662
01:04:35,063 --> 01:04:40,007
and I'm challenging it to all the skeptics I can find and they are trying to demolish right now

663
01:04:40,008 --> 01:04:51,043
and I think they will get somewhere, but there's something in it. You're a year too early or you're right on time.

664
01:04:51,073 --> 01:05:00,544
You can cut that out depending on whether it works or not in a year's time. I think in a year's time we will know..

665
01:05:00,545 --> 01:05:03,022
If you bring me an object and if you go..

666
01:05:03,024 --> 01:05:09,031
If I go to Mars, here's my phone and you can see my phone's got a screen, it's my boys

667
01:05:09,032 --> 01:05:17,080
when they were young at the dentist, and I find this on Mars. What do you conclude? If you go to Mars.

668
01:05:17,081 --> 01:05:23,043
You're the first person on Mars and you find one of these phones, what do you conclude?

669
01:05:23,044 --> 01:05:27,091
Speaker 2: That you are not the first one.

670
01:05:27,092 --> 01:05:37,007
Lee: It's either a hoax, I'm not the first one or a life form made a phone. It's either one or the other.

671
01:05:37,008 --> 01:05:44,012
Now, let's say we go to Mars and we find an object that is so complicated. It doesn't exist on earth...

672
01:05:44,013 --> 01:05:52,075
We've never seen it before. It's not evidence of Apple going galactic or solar.. What's a solar.. Systemic.. Solar...

673
01:05:52,076 --> 01:05:55,001
Apple Solar. You heard it here.

674
01:05:55,002 --> 01:05:58,085
Speaker 2: I won't take credit for that one.

675
01:05:58,086 --> 01:06:05,098
Lee: No. I just want money from Apple. I want them to pay me to go solar. Maybe Elon Musk can do that..

676
01:06:05,099 --> 01:06:09,086
If you can find a complicated enough.. These are called bio signatures..

677
01:06:09,087 --> 01:06:14,059
What I've done is, I think I've started to use.. I've written a new complexity theory.

678
01:06:14,092 --> 01:06:20,032
Me, which I'm very proud of as someone in school who was never any good at maths apparently.

679
01:06:20,033 --> 01:06:22,052
Well, I'm obviously not bad.

680
01:06:22,053 --> 01:06:30,014
I've written a new complexity theory with my research team and it seems to give us bio signatures to tell us

681
01:06:30,015 --> 01:06:33,025
when something is as complicated or improbable as a phone.

682
01:06:34,012 --> 01:06:37,089
You bring me a molecule in your hand,

683
01:06:40,002 --> 01:06:46,098
I can tell you by doing a number of simple things to that molecule if it was made by a life form or not.

684
01:06:47,051 --> 01:06:57,006
How cool is that? Equally, if you say this house. Was this house made by a life form or not? Yes. Your car. Your phone..

685
01:06:57,007 --> 01:07:03,074
Now I've now got a hierarchy of complexity and now in the end, I can define complexity by...

686
01:07:03,075 --> 01:07:09,091
Life by complexity, the necessary complexity. It's a bit like life form..

687
01:07:10,049 --> 01:07:15,083
Life is those things that can throw six die, six sixes in a row every time.

688
01:07:15,084 --> 01:07:17,012
Speaker 2: Yeah. You explained that briefly.

689
01:07:17,013 --> 01:07:19,579
Lee: Yeah..

690
01:07:19,580 --> 01:07:22,084
Speaker 2: I was just wondering. Is it possible for you..

691
01:07:22,095 --> 01:07:34,087
You discovered this mathematics or this explanation for how to recognize intelligence in a life form.

692
01:07:34,088 --> 01:07:38,094
Lee: Not intelligence. Evidence of a life form.

693
01:07:38,095 --> 01:07:39,019
Speaker 2: Complexity.

694
01:07:39,020 --> 01:07:41,028
Lee: Not intelligence. Here's the way I did it.

695
01:07:41,029 --> 01:07:41,069
Speaker 2: But, sorry.

696
01:07:41,070 --> 01:07:42,004
Lee: Okay.

697
01:07:42,005 --> 01:07:51,005
Speaker 2: Is it like the code or how is it-.

698
01:07:51,006 --> 01:07:57,052
Lee: It's more.. It's even more brilliant than that. Oh no, I shouldn't say that. It's even more simple that.

699
01:07:57,053 --> 01:08:02,040
I don't want to sound narcissistic on camera. It's even more simple than a code, because a code requires-

700
01:08:02,041 --> 01:08:03,092
Speaker 2: What is it? How is it?

701
01:08:03,093 --> 01:08:03,844
Lee: Molecules.

702
01:08:04,044 --> 01:08:04,092
Speaker 2: Molecules.

703
01:08:04,093 --> 01:08:05,062
Lee: It's molecules.

704
01:08:05,063 --> 01:08:11,057
Speaker 2: what is the name of the molecule?

705
01:08:11,058 --> 01:08:14,028
Lee: Any molecule. If you bring a molecule to me..

706
01:08:14,043 --> 01:08:17,007
I don't want to give too much away, because it's not published yet, but it should be-

707
01:08:17,008 --> 01:08:18,026
Speaker 2: Oh, that's why.

708
01:08:18,027 --> 01:08:19,041
Lee: It should be published-

709
01:08:19,042 --> 01:08:26,068
Speaker 2: We understand. Is it something, because I'm looking for something that when you are drawing on your window-

710
01:08:26,069 --> 01:08:36,003
Lee: There is a threshold. Here is the thing. When you add sand together, you get certain patterns.

711
01:08:36,004 --> 01:08:37,055
You get those patterns to be simple.

712
01:08:37,056 --> 01:08:45,053
It's basically how many grains of sand do I have add together to get a pattern that is not randomly possible.

713
01:08:46,032 --> 01:08:51,013
That is the beginning of the code in molecules. If you imagine sand grains are atoms.

714
01:08:51,014 --> 01:08:53,077
When you throw them together they join.

715
01:08:53,078 --> 01:09:01,010
There'll be a certain pattern of atoms that, when joined together, if you can find that in the environment,

716
01:09:01,011 --> 01:09:12,025
that can not spontaneously form, because it's just too improbable. That is it all. I think.

717
01:09:12,093 --> 01:09:19,062
I'm super excited, because now I don't need to make life, just make life.

718
01:09:19,088 --> 01:09:27,002
I need to make the simplest machine that can make the most complicated molecule. Now I'm like, "Ah.

719
01:09:27,003 --> 01:09:31,050
I don't have to fly for the sake of it," because flying, no one flew for the sake of it.

720
01:09:31,051 --> 01:09:36,078
They flew because they wanted to beat gravity and they wanted to get from London to New York.

721
01:09:37,007 --> 01:09:42,097
Now I have a reason for doing it. That's really important to have a reason for doing it.

722
01:09:43,051 --> 01:09:51,098
I can improve the complexity of the molecule and more importantly than that, more important, is I can look on earth

723
01:09:53,008 --> 01:09:54,031
or Mars or Europa

724
01:09:54,032 --> 01:10:04,005
and I can see if I can find molecules on these planets that are greater than the threshold of naturally occurring

725
01:10:04,006 --> 01:10:12,098
and to see if there is Martians or Europeans, because what I could argue is that life on earth is too sophisticated,

726
01:10:12,099 --> 01:10:24,061
so it's become globalization. Let me tell you the ultimate globalization in life on earth, DNA. Everyone has it.

727
01:10:24,062 --> 01:10:29,004
Aren't we boring? We all have Mcdonalds. It's all got Mcdonalds. Look at the golden arches.

728
01:10:29,005 --> 01:10:36,073
You all have to have a thing called a ribosome. Ribosome is a machine that turns your DNA information into proteins.

729
01:10:39,029 --> 01:10:44,001
How boring is that? Everybody is being globalized on earth. We all use the same thing.

730
01:10:44,011 --> 01:10:48,041
Wouldn't it be great if, on earth, we found other life forms that didn't use DNA?

731
01:10:48,042 --> 01:10:57,053
Wouldn't it be great if on Europa and on Mars we found other life forms that didn't use DNA?

732
01:10:57,054 --> 01:10:58,096
That they were still alive.

733
01:10:59,044 --> 01:11:04,008
They were above this threshold and the only way we could recognize them is they were making really complex molecules.

734
01:11:04,009 --> 01:11:05,016
You're talking about code.

735
01:11:05,058 --> 01:11:12,043
The reason I got excited is, the reason why some of my friends in complexity science are excited is, normally

736
01:11:12,044 --> 01:11:19,000
when you take any code or you would take a picture, you have to assign a code to it. It's abstract letters.

737
01:11:19,001 --> 01:11:26,075
For me, the code is written in the periodic table. The code is solved by the process of quantum mechanics.

738
01:11:26,076 --> 01:11:30,014
The code is embedded in the laws of the universe.

739
01:11:30,072 --> 01:11:42,096
The identity, carbon or nitrogen or oxygen or sulfur, they are implicit. The code is already there. I don't add it on.

740
01:11:42,097 --> 01:11:53,038
It means that the molecule that I think is complicated on earth next to the sun is equally valid in Alpha Centauri,

741
01:11:53,039 --> 01:12:00,006
the planet next to that. It's a universal code. It's a code of complex molecules.

742
01:12:00,007 --> 01:12:05,001
If I send a space probe to somewhere else in the universe and it finds a complex molecule

743
01:12:05,002 --> 01:12:14,006
and it's different to what we know on earth, then we can assume that it formed by chance of which there is no chance,

744
01:12:14,007 --> 01:12:19,013
I've already explained. Take that as an assumption, even if you don't believe me, just say, "Okay.

745
01:12:19,014 --> 01:12:23,056
I will assume that Lee's assumption is correct." If this molecule couldn't have formed by chance

746
01:12:24,068 --> 01:12:33,007
and it didn't come from earth, another life form made it. That's it. That's what we're looking for..

747
01:12:33,008 --> 01:12:44,085
Speaker 2: It sounds really exciting. Suppose you find it.. Of course, when you succeed-

748
01:12:44,086 --> 01:12:46,096
Lee: Thanks..

749
01:12:46,097 --> 01:12:55,008
Speaker 2:. What will that mean to us? Humanity?

750
01:12:55,009 --> 01:13:02,007
Lee: For me, it will be, if we succeed, when we succeed, when we succeed,

751
01:13:02,008 --> 01:13:10,002
it will tell us that the universe has the propensity, the ability, to live and that we are not a fluke.

752
01:13:10,003 --> 01:13:18,052
To that we can breathe a huge sigh of relief to say, "You know what? Our pathetic, little lives have some meaning.

753
01:13:19,024 --> 01:13:24,018
We are here." Now, what meaning? We impose the meaning on ourselves. The universe just is, right?

754
01:13:24,019 --> 01:13:25,048
I'm not looking for deep meaning anywhere.

755
01:13:25,049 --> 01:13:35,000
IT just is, but then we can shift our entire problem to saying, "Okay, life is easy. What about complex life?

756
01:13:35,022 --> 01:13:43,076
How easy is that?" Let's just say someone long after I die manages to do that and say, "Okay. What about intelligence?

757
01:13:43,077 --> 01:13:54,077
How do we make that? And what does that mean?" That is mind blowing. There are so many steps. I'm a real practical guy..

758
01:13:54,078 --> 01:14:00,088
I'm a chemist. I love computers. The reason I got.. My son is nine years old. My oldest son.

759
01:14:00,089 --> 01:14:07,046
Last Saturday I did something that my father did for me when I was nine years old. He bought me a computer..

760
01:14:07,047 --> 01:14:12,037
I took my son and I bought him the Raspberry Pi, which is the worlds..

761
01:14:12,065 --> 01:14:19,002
The best selling British computer ever and I have to be true to British computer science, because it's legend...

762
01:14:19,003 --> 01:14:24,055
I had a I bought him this Raspberry Pi. We had a nice case for the keyboard, so he..

763
01:14:24,073 --> 01:14:28,008
He's programming basic. He's addicted. It's hilarious.

764
01:14:28,055 --> 01:14:32,082
One of the things I loved about when I grew up, when I was nine, 10, 11 years old,

765
01:14:32,083 --> 01:14:37,070
the teachers were saying I was stupid, but I was programming and I was using assembly

766
01:14:37,071 --> 01:14:42,061
and trying to get as many programs into one K. I was fascinated.

767
01:14:42,062 --> 01:14:49,047
I only had one kilobyte, how much mayhem could I cause with one kilobyte? For me, it was like compression.

768
01:14:49,048 --> 01:14:53,002
How could I compress as much potential mayhem in 1K?

769
01:14:53,003 --> 01:15:01,055
That's why I became obsessed with complexabilty, that's a new word, compression and complexity.

770
01:15:01,056 --> 01:15:05,056
How much mayhem could I compact into a small box?

771
01:15:05,057 --> 01:15:23,081
Speaker 2: How do you prevent yourself from going crazy, because all these things and thoughts and ideas

772
01:15:23,082 --> 01:15:27,010
and instincts together, like the giant chemical soup-

773
01:15:27,011 --> 01:15:29,046
Lee: Well, I mean-

774
01:15:29,047 --> 01:15:36,021
Speaker 2: What do you do besides thinking about this? Just to balance your-

775
01:15:36,022 --> 01:15:41,060
Lee: I've always been balanced from the beginning..

776
01:15:41,061 --> 01:15:45,546
I'm always a little bit on the weird side, in terms of I'm a little bit extrovert, but my family, it may sound...

777
01:15:45,662 --> 01:15:47,029
My family came before me..

778
01:15:47,046 --> 01:15:55,065
Okay, I talked about when I was a child, but my progress into academia, I was married before I was a professor..

779
01:15:55,066 --> 01:16:02,002
I was married before I.. My wife is one of the smartest people I know and she's so dismissive.

780
01:16:02,003 --> 01:16:04,001
She's like, "Yeah, whatever.

781
01:16:04,002 --> 01:16:10,002
Now go do the washing up" or "Yeah, you may be smart," because she has a PhD in fundamental magnetism.

782
01:16:10,003 --> 01:16:15,011
It's kind of grounding in a way In magnetism. Quantum Magnetism.

783
01:16:15,064 --> 01:16:26,003
She was trying to understand how little magnets could order and undergo phase transitions in long distance..

784
01:16:26,004 --> 01:16:30,041
She, like me, had an interesting.. She was the opposite in school.

785
01:16:30,042 --> 01:16:34,077
She was at a poor school, but the geniuses school, so everyone thought she walked on water.

786
01:16:35,012 --> 01:16:41,022
She was told she was a genius while I was told I was a non genius at school. I don't know.

787
01:16:41,045 --> 01:16:43,041
We met on a course, actually.

788
01:16:43,042 --> 01:16:44,012
Speaker 2: Crystallography?

789
01:16:44,013 --> 01:16:57,999
Lee: Course, which is like a science course. Understanding x-ray diffraction. Years and years ago. I don't know..

790
01:16:58,000 --> 01:16:58,049
I suppose.. I've never been-

791
01:16:57,876 --> 01:16:58,050
Speaker 2: Really chemistry..

792
01:16:58,076 --> 01:17:04,536
Lee: Yeah. Real chemistry. I guess, I mean, I don't know. There is something intrinsically grounded in my...

793
01:17:04,537 --> 01:17:10,045
I'm a prac.. It's practical. I think yeah, yeah, yeah. Here's the reason why it's grounded. It's all very practical.

794
01:17:10,046 --> 01:17:14,051
It's like a lot of people go crazy because it becomes more and more abstract and like, "Oh,

795
01:17:14,077 --> 01:17:20,073
you can't possibly understand how complicated it is in my head" and all this.

796
01:17:20,074 --> 01:17:21,008
Yeah, probably you can't and probably you can.

797
01:17:21,009 --> 01:17:30,004
At the end of the day, and this is why one of the things I'm doing with my research group at the moment,.

798
01:17:29,804 --> 01:17:29,804
because I'm really privileged. I have so many smart people and their challenge..

799
01:17:30,004 --> 01:17:38,026
I probably can't use the word "retard" in America or some places. The stupid person in the group is me.

800
01:17:38,076 --> 01:17:44,012
If they can't explain to me what they've done, I can't write the paper with them.

801
01:17:44,013 --> 01:17:49,060
I can't raise the money with them, because I'm not just sitting in my office waiting for a paper and waiting for money.

802
01:17:49,061 --> 01:17:52,066
I want to do my science. I'm addicted to chemistry..

803
01:17:52,067 --> 01:17:55,008
Speaker 2: I mean, what do you do to..

804
01:17:55,039 --> 01:18:01,013
I understand how do you balance your own life with this big challenge and

805
01:18:01,014 --> 01:18:01,089
Lee: It's very practical.

806
01:18:01,090 --> 01:18:05,008
Speaker 2: Do you do sports or what do you do?

807
01:18:05,009 --> 01:18:11,024
Lee: A few weeks ago I remember being interviewed by someone who asked the same question.

808
01:18:11,063 --> 01:18:15,002
I used to have all these thing, "I do all this, that and the other." It's like now I don't do anything else.

809
01:18:15,003 --> 01:18:19,064
I sleep four hours a day. I work the rest. I spend some time with the family.

810
01:18:19,065 --> 01:18:25,064
It's not quite as severe as all that, but what I'm saying, let me finish one point, the first point is very practical,

811
01:18:25,065 --> 01:18:27,011
so the problems are very practical.

812
01:18:27,012 --> 01:18:32,005
You're having deep thoughts and then your glass breaks and there's water everywhere and there's crap everywhere

813
01:18:32,006 --> 01:18:40,062
and it's like you gotta clean it up. That's one thing. At home, well, I like to watch the television with my wife.

814
01:18:40,063 --> 01:18:45,042
We like fiction. I run every day. I've got two kids.

815
01:18:47,095 --> 01:18:52,067
I like to do stuff with them and I like them to challenge me and as much as I'm always busy,

816
01:18:52,068 --> 01:18:56,096
because I'm trying to raise money and writing papers they're like, "Look, dad. Come one." They're getting older.

817
01:18:56,097 --> 01:18:59,055
They're only going to be this age for a little while and so,

818
01:18:59,088 --> 01:19:04,072
I was fortunate enough to have children at a time in my life where everything could have gone off the rails,.

819
01:19:04,073 --> 01:19:09,093
but they bring you back. There's nothing like a kid vomiting on your shoulder or telling you..

820
01:19:10,026 --> 01:19:17,076
You come in with some brilliant ideas and the kid just goes, "No.

821
01:19:17,077 --> 01:19:20,007
Not interesting." It's quite funny, because they don't know.

822
01:19:21,001 --> 01:19:28,015
Okay, occasionally one of them says something odd, but they're smart and they're just really interesting

823
01:19:28,016 --> 01:19:37,006
and I'm interested in them. I have big hobbies. I love computers. I love technology. I love hacking around.

824
01:19:37,007 --> 01:19:38,005
Speaker 2:

825
01:19:38,006 --> 01:19:44,094
Lee: Well, yeah, I mean, but it is. I mean, you're trying to say that I paint or hand glide, I don't. I don't.

826
01:19:44,095 --> 01:19:45,095
I just-