What is Life? - Sir Paul Nurse

Fifteenth Norfolk Cambridge Society Lecture

Sir Paul Nurse, 2001 Nobel Prize winner for Physiology or Medicine

What separates life from non-life and enables three-dimensional organisations of atoms to both create consciousness and pass on genetic information from one generation to the next? Erwin Schrödinger, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, asked those questions eighty years ago and Sir Paul Nurse has spent a lifetime pursuing the answers. In this Fifteenth Norfolk Cambridge Society Lecture, Sir Paul will illuminate five great ideas that underpin biology–the Cell, the Gene, Evolution by Natural Selection, Life as Chemistry and Life as Information. He will introduce the scientists who made the most important advances, and, using his personal experiences in and out of the lab, he will share with us the challenges, the lucky breaks, and the thrilling eureka moments of discovery. He will also consider the implications regarding our uniqueness as human beings and whether we drive the laws of physics or whether they drive us.

The lecture will be followed by refreshments.

Please note that tickets can only be bought by adults. If you are a sixth former, please arrange for your parents or a teacher to buy the tickets on your behalf, as you must be accompanied by an adult at the lecture. If this is not possible for you, we can arrange for a Norwich School staff member attending the lecture to act in loco parentis. Please contact us using the 'Contact the event organiser' button if you need this to happen or if you have any other questions.