Reading

Here is a list of work that helped me in writing the book but does not appear in the end-of-chapter bibliographies.

Many of the academic papers are behind paywalls.  Often, simply searching for the title will bring up a public version.  For useful tips on how to find papers, see the Ronin Institute's guidance here.

Chapter 3:  

• Atomism and the Ancient World: see  chapter V of "The physical world of the Greeks" by Samuel Sambursky, available here.

• Atomism and thermodynamics in the nineteenth century: a review is here.

• Violating the second law: some experimental work is here.

Chapter 4:

• Steam engines:  an economic historian's perspective is here.

• Carnot cycle: the  Wikipedia page gives a good overview.

• "English translation" of the three laws: In Astounding Science Fiction from 1956, p43, available here.

• James Joule and the law of conservation of energy: a review paper is here.

• The third law: Wikipedia gives a good overview here, and some recent work on the connection with quantum physics is here.

• "Fourth laws": two attempts to justify a fourth law are here and here.  

• The role of time in physics: see ch30 of Sir Roger Penrose's "The road to reality"

Chapter 5:  

• Descartes and vortices: section 7 of the Stanford Encyclopedia article is a good place to start.

• Kelvin and vortices: the Wikipedia article is here.

• Vortices in an electron fluid: the published version is here, the pre-print here. 

• The demon, and a device capable of reversible measuremet: see the 1987 Scientific American article here.

Chapter 6:  

• Black holes: the classic, but rather technical papers are - Bekenstein - Black holes and the second law; Hawking - The four laws of black hole mechanics; Hawking - Particle creation by black holes. 

• Stellar fusion: see Illiadis - Nuclear physics of stars, available here.

• Stellar evolution: the Wikipedia article here is  good place to start.

• Vortices in the earth's core: a 1999 article from Nature.

• Extraterrestrial vortices:  The Wikipedia article is here.

• Convection in the mantle:  The Wikipedia article is here.

Chapter 7:  

• The H2 + D reaction: In 1990, in 2017. 

Chapter 8:  

• Proto-evolution in chemical system: an article here.

• Pre-biotic systems chemistry: a review article here.

• Vesicles acting as templates: the original article is here.  There is a clear discussion in Chapter 12 of Pier Luigi Luisi's book, The emergence of life, available here.

Chapter 9:  

• For data on cells in general:  Harvard BioNumbers

• For data on E. coli: Ecocyc

• Molecular crowding: there is an interesting discussion here and a model of the impact of crowding on search here.

• Proteins: an inteeresting disucssion of the physics of proteins is here.

• Lipids: The Wikipedia page is here and a more chemistry-oriented discussion here.

• The shape of DNA: an article here.

• The bacterium with the smallest genome: Wikipedia.

Chapter 10:  

• Glycolysis and biosynthesis: see Table 4.1 in Kim and Gadd - Bacterial physiology and metabolism. Available here.

• The citric acid cycle and biosynthesis: see Chapter 2 of Alberts et al - Molecular biology of the cell. Available here.

• The synthesis of guanosine : see figure 6.21 in Kim and Gadd - Bacterial physiology and metabolism. Available here.

Chapter 11:  

• The importance of water for enzyme shape and function: a 2016 article here.

• Energy transport in proteins: a 2021 article here.

• Binding energy and structural changes: a 2017 article here.

• Cell regulation: an overview here.

Chapter 12:  

• More articles on ATP synthase: here, here,  here, here and here 

• Quantum tunnelling in complex I: a 2011 article here.

Chapter 13:  

• How many cells are there on earth? : one answer is here. 

• Different types of RNA: Wikipedia has a list here.

• Ratchet mechanism in DNA polymerase: an article here.

• Rates of protein synthesis: a 2014 article here.

• Heat shock response: a discussion is in Chapter 12 of Kim and Gadd - Bacterial physiology and metabolism. Available here.

• The replisome : a 2015 article here.

• FtsZ and treadmilling: a 2017 article here.

• Reactivating primitive cell division: a 2013 article here.

Chapter 14:  

• An excellent overview of some connections between physics and life: a 2011 article here.

• A textbook discussion of fluctuation theorems: section 6.5.2 of Attard - Beyond the second law.  Available here.

• Bacterial ageing: a 2017 article here.

• Assembly of ribosomes: a 2011 article here.

• The complexity of life: see the discussion in Chapter 4 of Dyson - Origins of life.  Available here.

Chapter 15:  

• Conditions on the early earth: a 2007 article here and one from 2012 here.

• Environments for the origin of life: clay, silica, tectonic faults, sediments, ice, pumice, aerosols. 

• Volcanic islands: for a list, see Wikipedia.

• Details of hydrothermal ponds: a 2019 article here.

• Hydrocarbons in vents:  a 2008 article here.

• Cofactors and enzymes: a 2001 article here; one from 2012 here.

• Non-enzymatic reactions in metabolism: a 2015 article here.

• Cycles and polymerization: the original 1978 article here; empirical work from 2018 here; the thermodynamics here; some theoretical work from 2016 here; then evidence for proteins, lipids and RNA.   

• Electron bifurcation: a review from 2016 is here. 

• Energy and vents: a 2012 article here.

• Sources of proton gradients: from heat flow here, in condensates here. 

• Green rust: a 2018 article here.

• Vents vs ponds: an entertaining polemic here.

• Carts and cars: the earliest evidence of wheeled vehicles discussed here.