Abstract: Before an Escherichia coli cell divides to give two viable daughter cells, the constantly growing cell must replicate, topologically decatenate, and spatially segregate its genetic materials. These processes pose non-trivial, conceptual questions at the interface between physics/mathematics and biology. In this talk, I will discuss the questions in two independent and yet related contexts. In the first part, I will focus on the physical nature of the bacterial chromosome and show that its behavior can be understood as a soft spring confined in a crowded environment. The second part concerns the growth of the cell and I will show that E. coli possess a very robust mechanism of growth. I will conclude by discussing one of the long-standing questions in biology, which we physicists may view as a “causality” problem.