The Random Brownian Motion

The core reason that it's so hard to study the emergence of life as a statistical physicist is that we only have well understood laws governing systems in equilibrium. A system at equilibrium is stable, and you can say a lot about it quite easily with statistical mechanics. But all this simple equilibrium physics doesn't work at all on systems of life. We're not in thermodynamic equilibrium. And somehow or other, that departure from equilibrium allows us to have an emergence of organization that just wouldn't be possible in equilibrium.