title: What Is Life?
by: Schrödinger, Erwin
published: 1944
read: 2024-06
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Published in 1944 and based on a series of lectures that Schroedinger gave in Cambridge, this book investigates the relationship between physics and biology. Published in 1944, the book addresses the question of how living organisms maintain order and stability despite the natural tendency towards disorder, as described by the second law of thermodynamics.

Key Points:

  1. Order from Disorder: we learn the concept of “negative entropy” (aka “negentropy”) to explain how living organisms sustain themselves by importing order from their environment. This concept explains how life can maintain its structure and function over time, countering the increase in entropy predicted by thermodynamics. Incidentally, this is closely related to Shannon’s channel capacity, but described between action and sensing. That was 1948.

  2. Genetic Code and Molecular Basis of Life: What is the molecular basis of heredity? The book proposes that genes must be an “aperiodic crystal,” a structure that, while ordered, has the complexity to store genetic information. This idea influenced subsequent discoveries in the field of genetics, including the structure of DNA. Remember, that book is from 1944, while Crick’s work is from the 1950s.

  3. Quantum Mechanics and Life: does quantum mechanics play a role in biological processes, particularly in the stability of genetic material? By now we know that it does, and that’s partly due to Schroedinger suggesting that quantum phenomena might be responsible for the precise and stable functioning of biological molecules.

  4. Biology as a Branch of Physics: life should ultimately be understandable through the principles of physics and chemistry; biology and physics should be merged, so that life’s processes can be explained by the same laws that we use to describe the non-living world.

The book’s interdisciplinary approach influenced the development of molecular biology. It inspired scientists to explore the physical underpinnings of life, contributing to breakthroughs in genetics, biochemistry, and the study of complex systems.