RaveScience\"In a fascinating journey across physics and biology, Cockell builds a compelling argument for how physical principles constrain the course of evolution. Chapter by chapter, he aims his lens at all levels of biological organization, from the molecular machinery of electron transport to the social organisms formed by ant colonies. In each instance, Cockell shows that although these structures might be endless in their detail, they are bounded in their form. If organisms were pawns in a game of chess, physics would be the board and its rules, limiting how the game unfolds.
Much of the beauty of this book is in the diversity of principles it presents ... Cockell ends the book by celebrating the elegant equations that represent the relations between form and function. Rather than being a lifeless form of reductionism, equations, he argues, are our window into what physics renders possible (or impossible) for life to achieve. In equations, we express how our biosphere is full of symmetry, pattern, and law. Within them, we express the boldest claim of them all: that these limitations should be no less than universal.\
