Schrödinger's groundbreaking answer to this age-old question began with the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the universe is undergoing an irreversible process of entropy: an inexorable decline from order to disorder. This law predicts that heat will always flow to cooler regions and explains why, once you've beaten an egg, you can never get the yolk back. However, Schrödinger observed that while the universe as a whole undergoes entropy, life somehow manages to reverse this process. Living organisms, he noted, survive through sucking order out of the entropy around them and
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