Engines for Emergence: Frustration, Mutation and Dissipation in Dynamic Molecular Networks

What separates living from non-living has fascinated thinkers for millennia. Chemistry, aided by advances in analytical technologies, has begun to address how such a transition might take place. This thesis takes a break from traditional chemistry focused on studying molecules in isolation and goes into the abyss of chemical mixtures where molecules tinker around while they are made and break into their constituents. Rarely, a few of these molecules make copies (replicate) of themselves at cost of other molecules. At other times, these molecules fold on themselves and become more stable. Experiments in this thesis show how chemical mixtures can be designed more intently so that the folding and replicating molecules co-exist in water in a single container. Experiments show surprising results that molecules can find unusual partners to co-assemble with and become resistant to degradation. With sound design principles the replicating molecules can even be made to better recognize themselves from those that look very similar but are not identical. Readers will gain appreciation of thriving area of systems chemistry that aims to push chemical mixtures to develop life-like behaviours including replication and Darwinian evolution - blurring the lines between animate and inanimate.