Scientists Invent a Mathematical Way to Identify What is “Alive”

Today I Learned about Assembly Theory & it’s blowing my mind. Assembly Theory, at its core, is a mathematical way to determine whether something is alive or not.

Every molecule has an “assembly index”, basically how many steps it takes to build that compound from scratch. For example, for simple molecules like water? Maybe 2 steps. DNA? Probably hundreds. The creators of this theory, Lee Cronin and Sara Walker, have identified the “magical number” called the complexity threshold above which o