In this first unit of the course,
we introduce you to some of the core knowledge and general ideas
needed for understanding the origins of life.
In particular, we introduce the ideas related to
how hard or easy we think life is to form,
describe the key evolutionary theory needed
to think about how systems can persist in time,
illustrate how physical and chemical dynamics naturally lead to structure,
provide perspectives on the history of Earth and its chemistry,
and discuss the key commonalities and functions
across all of the life that we know.
We approach these topics using a wide variety of perspectives,
including mathematical derivations,
chemical structures and comparative biology.