devout right now i'm by the imam obama. gaming. welcome back rio may have been. on with threats to life on earth coming from war catalyzed by u.s. assassinations and climate change destruction scene of course australia but some scientists are asking not so much about the end of life on earth or even the origins of life on earth but what is life itself joining me is award winning professor paul davies whose new book the demon in the machine the hidden webs of information and solving the mystery of life is out for welcome to going underground who are the demons of james clark maxwell well maxwell was a giant of theoretical physics lived in the 19th century where it's not very far from where we're sitting now at king's college in london unified electricity and magnetism and contributed enormously to the theory of heat and he came up with a weird idea in a letter to a friend it was just an idle thought that if there was some sort of tiny little being who could see individual molecules as they rushed around colliding with each other and could have some sort of shutter