Thermodynamic Limitations on the Natural Emergence of Long Chain Molecules: Implications for Origin of Life

For a polymer of N-monomer-units long, or N-mer, which has a dimer decay time constant of τ, the polymer decay time constant is proved to be closely approximated by τ/N (under rather general assumptions). The implications of this for abiogenesis are profound, namely that there would be small amounts of time available (order of days) for a prebiotic sequence of a condensation polymer to serve as the primary information-bearing code for the last universal common ancestor. All three classes of prebiotically relevant polymers (polynucleotides, polypeptides and polysaccharides) are condensation polymers expected to be subject to these time constraints.