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To construct a “cell” from scratch in accordance with the principles of thermodynamics, highly reactive carbon and chemical energy must flow continuously through a constrained flow-reaction system in the presence of primitive catalysts. It has become clear that only alkaline hydrothermal vents composed of serpentinite, formed when olivine reacts with water, provide all the conditions required for this process.

Following "The Birth and Structure of the Solar System", the story continues with "The Birth of the Earth and Its Early Evolution". One can then appreciate the Earth's most distinctive features—the presence of liquid water and the alteration of the oceanic crust accompanied by magma generation through interactions with seawater—and understand how these processes created the conditions that ultimately gave rise to the revolutionary organic system known as life.

The narrative then explains that energy is the key to the evolution of life. It shows how virtually all living organisms obtain energy through redox (oxidation–reduction) reactions mediated by highly conserved respiratory electron transport chains, and how this energy is harnessed through a proton gradient across a thin membrane to drive the synthesis of ATP (adenosine triphosphate), the universal energy-carrying molecule of life.

The universe originated in the Big Bang, a colossal event that, according to the inflationary theory, was accompanied by an unprecedented and extraordinarily rapid expansion over an infinitesimally brief period of time. Of the universe, the ordinary matter that we can directly perceive accounts for only about 5 percent. Approximately 27 percent consists of the mysterious dark matter, while the remaining 68 percent is made up of dark energy, whose nature remains largely unknown. It is this dark energy that is thought to be driving the expansion of the universe.