Emergent Phenomena in Science and Everyday Life

Before the advent of quantum mechanics in the early 20th century, most scientists believed that it should be possible to predict the behavior of any object in the universe simply by understanding the behavior of its constituent parts. For instance, if one could write down the equations of motion for every atom in a system, it should be possible to solve those equations (with the aid of a sufficiently large computing device) and make accurate predictions about that system’s future. However, there are some systems that defy this notion. Consider a living cell, which consists mostly of carbon, h…