The concept of chemical space is immensely vast and practically impossible to quantify. Even experts such as cheminformaticians struggle to estimate the total number of molecules within this space. A striking example is the molecule taxol, an anti-cancer drug. If one were to generate every possible permutation of its molecular structure along with all three-dimensional configurations of its constituent atoms, the resulting volume would occupy 1.5 universes. This illustrates the staggering complexity and enormity of chemistry.
Professor Sara Walker is an astrobiologist and theoretical physicist whose research focuses on the origins of life, artificial life, and the detection of life on other worlds. She is the author of “Life as No One Knows It: The Physics of Life’s Emergence.”
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