The 22nd University Distinguished Lecture will host renowned academician, Padma Bhushan Prof. P Balaram, National Centre for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bengaluru on October 10, 2025.
Prof. Balram will deliver an insightful session on the “Evolutionary Inventions and Innovations That Drove the Rise of Chemistry, the Birth of Biology and Determine Human History”.
Abstract
“The word evolution is most closely associated with Darwin and Biology. Yet it is the word that changed physics in my lifetime.” These are the words used by the physicist Jacob Bronowski in his now classic narration of “The Ascent of Man”, in the 1970s on BBC television. Bronowski is at that point trying to explain the formation of the chemical elements in the stars, by nuclear fusion processes, and concludes “matter itself evolves”. Indeed, all the natural elements, present on Earth and accessible by mining, were the Earth’s inheritance when it was born. Geological and chemical evolution must necessarily precede evolution of life on Earth. For almost the first 1.5 billion years of its almost 4.6 billion years of existence, the Earth was devoid of life forms. This was the Hadean age, a period when a molten surface began to settle, a time of asteroid impacts, an unimaginably hostile period for any life form. Yet it was the time that geology and chemistry conspired to create the conditions for the birth of biology.
Home »
