The origin of life as a probabilistic event in the Universe

Abstract

By means of a probabilistic mathematical model, we bring into discussion the origin of life as a stochastic process. We consider only the chance of information emergence in the proteome and genome under the ideal thermodynamic and chemical conditions. For a more realistic model, we used, as a parameter, the information amount in Nanoarchaeum equitans genome, the simplest known nowadays, as the equivalent to the first living cell that could have emerged in primitive Earth. We estimated the probability of information emergence by chance as about 10^-500’000. Considering the necessary ideal conditions for information emergence, the probability of the origin of life would be even smaller.