What Is Life by Schrodinger, Erwin -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Title Copyright Contents Part: 1 What is Life?

Preface Chapter: 1 The Classical Physicist’s Approach to the Subject

Chapter: 2 The Hereditary Mechanism

The classical physicist’s expectation, far from being trivial, is wrong The hereditary code-script (chromosomes) Growth of the body by cell division (mitosis) In mitosis every chromosome is duplicated Reductive division (meiosis) and fertilization (syngamy) Haploid individuals The outstanding relevance of the reductive division Crossing-over. Location of properties Maximum size of a gene Small numbers Permanence

Chapter: 3 Mutations

‘Jump-like’ mutations the working-ground of natural selection They breed true, i.e. they are perfectly inherited Localization. Recessivity and Dominance Introducing some technical language The harmful effect of close-breeding General and historical remarks The necessity of mutation being a rare event Mutations induced by X-rays First law. Mutation is a single event Second law. Localization of the event

Chapter: 4 The Quantum-Mechanical Evidence

Permanence unexplainable by classical physics Explicable by quantum theory Quantum theory – discrete states-quantum jumps Molecules Their stability dependent on temperature Mathematical interlude First amendment Second amendment

Chapter: 5 Delbrück’s Model Discussed and Tested

The general picture of the hereditary substance The uniqueness of the picture Some traditional misconceptions Different ‘states’ of matter The distinction that really matters The aperiodic solid The variety of contents compressed in the miniature code Comparison with facts: degree of stability; discontinuity of mutations Stability of naturally selected genes The sometimes lower stability of mutants Temperature influences unstable genes less than stable ones How X-rays produce mutation Their efficiency does not depend on spontaneous mutability Reversible mutations

Chapter: 6 Order, Disorder and Entropy

A remarkable general conclusion from the model Order based on order Living matter evades the decay to equilibrium It feeds on ‘negative entropy’ What is entropy? The statistical meaning of entropy Organization maintained by extracting ‘order’ from the environment

Chapter: 7 Is Life Based on the Laws of Physics?

New laws to be expected in the organism Reviewing the biological situation Summarizing the physical situation The striking contrast Two ways of producing orderliness The new principle is not alien to physics The motion of a clock Clockwork after all statistical Nernst’s Theorem The pendulum clock is virtually at zero temperature The relation between clockwork and organism

Epilogue. On Determinism and Free Will

Part: 2 Mind and Matter

Chapter: 1 The Physical Basis of Consciousness

The problem A tentative answer Ethics

Chapter: 2 The Future of Understanding

A biological blind alley? The apparent gloom of Darwinism Behaviour influences selection Feigned Lamarckism Genetic fixation of habits and skills Dangers to intellectual evolution

Chapter: 3 The Principle of Objectivation Chapter: 4 The Arithmetical Paradox: The Oneness of Mind Chapter: 5 Science and Religion Chapter: 6 The Mystery of the Sensual Qualities

Part: 3 Autobiographical Sketches