Jeremy England

Jeremy England is an American physicist who uses statistical physics arguments to explain the spontaneous emergence of life, and consequently, the modern synthesis of evolution.[3][4][5][6] England terms this process "dissipation-driven adaptation".[7]

Jeremy England
Born1982
Boston, Massachusetts
NationalityUSA
Alma mater
Known forDissipation-driven adaptation hypothesis of abiogenesis
Scientific career
FieldsBiophysics
InstitutionsGlaxoSmithKline
ThesisTheory and Simulation of Explicit Solvent Effects on Protein Folding in Vitro and in Vivo (2009)
Doctoral advisorVijay S. Pande[2]
WebsiteOfficial Website

Early life

England's mother was the daughter of Polish Jewish Holocaust survivors while his father was a non-observant Lutheran.[8] England was born in Boston[9] and raised in a college town in New Hampshire. He was raised Jewish but did not study Judaism until he attended graduate school at Oxford University. He now considers himself an Orthodox Jew.[8]

England earned a bachelor's degree in biochemistry from Harvard in 2003. After being awarded a Rhodes Scholarship, he studied at St. John's College, Oxford from 2003 until 2005. He earned his Ph.D. in physics at Stanford in 2009.[1][10] In 2011, he joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Physics Department as an Assistant Professor.[9] In 2019, he joined GlaxoSmithKline as a Senior Director in artificial intelligence and machine learning.[11]

Theoretical work

England has developed a hypothesis of the physics of the origins of life, that he calls 'dissipation-driven adaptation'.[3][4][6] The hypothesis holds that random groups of molecules can self-organize to more efficiently absorb and dissipate heat from the environment. His hypothesis states that such self-organizing systems are an inherent part of the physical world.[8]

Pulitzer-Prize winning science historian Edward J. Larson said that if England can demonstrate his hypothesis to be true, "he could be the next Darwin."[8]

Criticism

England's work is a recent and unacknowledged restatement of the constructal law, which Duke University Professor Adrian Bejan first published in 1996. Bejan has developed the law in at least six books – including “Advanced Engineering Thermodynamics”(2nd ed.1997) [12] and “Design in Nature: How the Constructal; Law Governs Evolution in Biology, Physics, Technology and Social Organization” (Doubleday, 2012) [13] - and hundreds of peer reviewed physics, biology and engineering articles since. The constructal law is a first principle of physics that summarizes the tendency of all nature - both the animate and inanimate realms - to generate and evolve designs with direction in time, to facilitate the flow of their currents. [14] This is the thermodynamics law of flow from power, dissipation from flow, and evolution of design from freedom to change paths. It is the law of directionality, objective and evolution everywhere. It accounts for all the discernible flow architectures that abound in nature, including the tree-like structure of river basins, lightning bolts and the circulatory system. [15] England's term "dissipation-driven adaptation" says nothing different, except that it hides behind a reductionist text (molecules, and smaller). The word "adaptation" means the process by which a system changes in order "to fit": that is the directionality, objective and evolution of all nature, which is known as the constructal law honored with the Benjamin Franklin medal [16] and the highest awards in thermal sciences (see the Adrian Bejan wiki page for list).

England and his 'dissipation-driven adaptation' theory features in Dan Brown's novel Origin. The fictional character is not related to the real Jeremy England.[17]

Awards

England shared APS 2021 Irwin Oppenheim Award with Sumantra Sarkar.[18] He is also listed in a Forbes "30 under 30" in science.[19][20]

England was selected as Rhodes Scholar in 2003.[21] Also in 2003, the Hertz Foundation awarded England a Hertz Fellowship.[20]

See also

References
  1. Curriculum Vitae- Jeremy L. England (PDF), EnglandLab.com, retrieved December 17, 2014
  2. England, Jeremy (2009). Theory and Simulation of Explicit Solvent Effects on Protein Folding in Vitro and in Vivo (PhD thesis). ISBN 978-1243607553.
  3. Wolchover, Natalie (Jan 28, 2014). "A New Physics Theory of Life". Scientific American. Retrieved Dec 11, 2014.
  4. "Massachusetts physicist claims he solved mystery of how life emerged from matter". RT. Jan 23, 2014. Retrieved Dec 11, 2014.
  5. Tafarella, Santi (Jan 28, 2014). "Dissipation-Driven Adaptive Organization: Is Jeremy England The Next Charles Darwin?". Prometheus Unbound. Retrieved Dec 11, 2014.
  6. Jones, Orion (Dec 9, 2014). "MIT Physicist Proposes New "Meaning of Life"". Big Think. Retrieved Dec 11, 2014.
  7. Perunov, Nikolai; Marsland, Robert; England, Jeremy (2016). "Statistical Physics of Adaptation". Physical Review X. 6 (2): 021036. arXiv:1412.1875. Bibcode:2016PhRvX...6b1036P. doi:10.1103/PhysRevX.6.021036. S2CID 15928632.
  8. Meet the Orthodox Jewish physicist rethinking the origins of life" by Simona Weinglass, The Times of Israel, October 29, 2015.
  9. Faculty biography of Jeremy England, MIT Dept. of Physics, accessed Jan. 9, 2015.
  10. England, Jeremy. "Curriculum Vitae". englandlab. Archived from the original on April 15, 2017. Retrieved April 14, 2017.
  11. "GlaxoSmithKline recruits a new coach and top player for their AI/ML team out of Genentech and MIT". San Francisco Biotechnology Network News. July 11, 2019.
  12. Wiley’s Advanced Engineering Thermodynamics page
  13. Doubleday's Design in Nature page
  14. Constructal Law website
  15. Duke Engineering Video
  16. [https:// www.fi.edu/laureates/adrian-bejan] Franklin Institute Awards Page
  17. "Statement on Origin". englandlab.com.
  18. "Irwin Oppenheim Award". American Physical Society. Retrieved 2021-01-28.
  19. "Jeremy England". Forbes. Retrieved 2021-01-29.[Forbes]
  20. "Jeremy England - Fanny and John Hertz Foundation". Hertz Foundation. Retrieved 2021-01-29.
  21. Ken Gewertz (2002-12-12). "Five Harvard students selected as 2003 Rhodes Scholars".

^ Forbes.com seems to have lost most of the content on his profile and lists a broken link to the 2012 30-under-30 in Science. The Hertz Foundation profile mentions the 2018 Forbes 30-under-30. However, neither the 2012 nor the 2018 official listing pages on Forbes.com list England.

Further reading
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