The book is certainly intended for physicists (or readers who studied physics at a technical university), but the intriguing title “ What is life?"should be of interest to everyone. I will try to highlight what the book is about, so that it is clear to non-physicists, who can skip the italics in this review without harming their understanding :)
Geniuses are multifaceted, and the publication by Schrödinger in 1944 of an original study at the intersection of physics and biology fits well with the image of a brilliant theoretical physicist, Nobel laureate, one of the developers of quantum mechanics and the wave theory of matter, the author of the famous equation describing the change in space and time in the state of quantum systems, who, in addition to physics, knows six languages, reads ancient and contemporary philosophers in the original, is interested in art, writes and publishes his own poetry.
So, the author begins by justifying the reason for a living organism to be polyatomic. Next, Schrödinger introduces a model of an aperiodic crystal and, using the concept of quantum mechanical discreteness, explains how a microscopically small gene resists thermal fluctuations, preserving the hereditary properties of the organism, and how it undergoes mutations (abrupt changes occurring without intermediate states), further retaining already mutated properties.
But here we come to the most interesting part:
What is the characteristic feature of life? We consider matter to be alive when it continues to "do something", move, participate in metabolism with the environment, etc. - all this during more long period of time, than we would expect inanimate matter to do under similar conditions.
If a non-living system is isolated or placed in homogeneous conditions, all movement usually very soon stops... and the system as a whole fades away, turns into a dead inert mass of matter. A state is reached in which no noticeable events occur - a state of thermodynamic equilibrium, or a state of maximum entropy.
How does a living organism avoid the transition to equilibrium? The answer is quite simple: due to the fact that it eats.
A living organism (as well as a nonliving one) continuously increases its entropy and thus approaches the dangerous state of maximum entropy that represents death. He can remain alive only by constantly extracting negative entropy from his environment...
Negative entropy is what the body feeds on.
Thus, the means by which an organism maintains itself constantly at a sufficiently high level of order (and at a sufficiently low level of entropy) actually consists in the continuous extraction of order from its environment.
This Schrödinger idea is popularly expounded by Michael Weller in his book All About Life.
Schrödinger's book is truly wonderful, with many beautiful physical explanations and biological ideas. She had a significant influence on the development of biophysics and molecular biology. In our country, at the time of persecution of genetics, this was one of the few books from which one could learn at least something about genes.
And yet, despite the beauty of the book from a physical and biological point of view, to the question “What is life?” Schrödinger doesn't answer. The cited criterion “Living things last longer than non-living things” is subjective due to the subjectivity of the concept of “longer”. A living mouse in a closed system will stop “functioning” in a week, and electronic devices (watches, toys, etc.) on Energizer and Duracell batteries can continuously function much longer :).
A remarkable bonus that Schrödinger requested from the audience of his lectures was the opportunity to tell them about determinism and free will (the “Epilogue” of the book). Here he quotes the Upanishads, in which the quintessence of the deepest insight into what is happening in the world is the idea that
Atman = Brahman, that is, the personal individual soul is equal to the omnipresent, all-perceiving, eternal soul.
Mystics have always described the personal experience of their lives with the words “Deus factum sum” (I have become God).
From two premises: 1. My body functions as a pure mechanism, obeying the universal laws of nature. 2. From experience, I know that I control my actions, foresee their results and bear full responsibility for my actions.
Schrödinger concludes:
"I" taken in the widest sense of the word - that is, every conscious mind that has ever said and felt "I" - is a subject that can control the "movement of atoms" according to the laws of nature.
Erwin Schrödinger. What is Life? The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell
Erwin Rudolf Joseph Alexander Schrödinger is an Austrian theoretical physicist and Nobel Prize winner in physics. One of the developers of quantum mechanics and the wave theory of matter. In 1945, Schrödinger wrote the book “What is Life from the Point of View of Physics?”, which had a significant influence on the development of biophysics and molecular biology. This book takes a close look at several critical issues. The fundamental question is: “How can physics and chemistry explain those phenomena in space and time that take place inside a living organism?” Reading this book will not only provide extensive theoretical material, but will also make you think about what life essentially is?
Erwin Schrödinger. What is life from a physics point of view? M.: RIMIS, 2009. 176 p. Download:
Erwin Schrödinger. What is life from a physics point of view? M.: Atomizdat, 1972. 62 p. Download:
Source of text version: Erwin Schrödinger. What is life from a physics point of view? M.: Atomizdat, 1972. 62 p.
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Peter Atkins
This book is intended for a wide range of readers who want to learn more about the world around us and about themselves. The author, a famous scientist and popularizer of science, explains with extraordinary clarity and depth the structure of the Universe, the secrets of the quantum world and genetics, the evolution of life, and shows the importance of mathematics for understanding all of nature and the human mind in particular.
Vladimir Budanov, Alexander Panov
On the verge of madness
In everyday surroundings, people most often call for the expediency of thoughts, actions, and decisions. And, by the way, synonyms for expediency sound like “relevance, usefulness and rationality...” It’s just that on an intuitive level it seems like something is missing. Entropy? Mess? So there is plenty of it in the physical world, says the presenter of the program, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Karima Nigmatulina-Mashchitskaya. And the guests of the program tried to reunite two concepts into a single whole - entropy and expediency. Program participants: Doctor of Philosophy, Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Vladimir Budanov, and Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Alexander Panov.
Alexander Markov
This book is a fascinating story about the origins and structure of man, based on the latest research in anthropology, genetics and evolutionary psychology. The two-volume book “Human Evolution” answers many questions that have long interested Homo sapiens. What does it mean to be human? When and why did we become human? In what ways are we superior to our neighbors on the planet, and in what ways are we inferior to them? And how can we better use our main difference and advantage – a huge, complex brain? One way is to read this book thoughtfully.
Alexander Markov
This book is a fascinating story about the origins and structure of man, based on the latest research in anthropology, genetics and evolutionary psychology. The two-volume book “Human Evolution” answers many questions that have long interested Homo sapiens. What does it mean to be human? When and why did we become human? In what ways are we superior to our neighbors on the planet, and in what ways are we inferior to them? And how can we better use our main difference and advantage – a huge, complex brain? One way is to read this book thoughtfully.
Valentin Turchin
In this book, V.F. Turchin sets out his concept of metasystem transition and, from its position, traces the evolution of the world from the simplest single-celled organisms to the emergence of thinking, the development of science and culture. In terms of its contribution to science and philosophy, the monograph is on a par with such well-known works as “Cybernetics” by N. Wiener and “The Phenomenon of Man” by P. Teilhard de Chardin. The book is written in vivid, figurative language and is accessible to readers of any level. Of particular interest to those interested in fundamental issues of natural science.
Alexander Markov
In popular science articles on archaeology, geology, paleontology, evolutionary biology and other disciplines, one way or another related to the reconstruction of events of the distant past, absolute dates are found every now and then: something happened 10 thousand years ago, something 10 million, and something - 4 billion years ago. Where do these numbers come from?
Current page: 1 (book has 13 pages total) [available reading passage: 9 pages]
Erwin Schrödinger
What is life?
What is life?
Living cell as a physical object
Based on lectures given in association with the Dublin Institute of Advanced Study at Trinity College, Dublin, February 1943.
In memory of my parents
Preface
As a young mathematics student in the early 1950s, I read little, but when I did, it was mostly by Erwin Schrödinger. I have always liked his work; there was a thrill of discovery in it, which promised a truly new understanding of the mysterious world in which we live. In this sense, the short classic work “What is Life?” especially stands out, which, as I now understand, should certainly be placed on a par with the most influential scientific works of the 20th century. It is a powerful attempt to understand the real mysteries of life - an attempt made by a physicist whose own insightful insights have greatly changed our understanding of what the world is made of. The book's multidisciplinary nature was unusual for its time, but it is written with an endearing, if disarming, modesty at a level accessible to non-specialists and young people aspiring to a scientific career. In fact, many scientists who made fundamental contributions to biology, such as B. S. Haldane 1
Haldane, John Burdon Sanderson (1892–1964) - English geneticist, biochemist, physiologist and evolutionist who was at the origins of population and molecular genetics and the synthetic theory of evolution. – Note here and below. lane
And Francis Crick 2
Crick, Francis (1916–2004) - British molecular biologist and biophysicist, one of the discoverers of the structure of DNA, Nobel Prize laureate.
They acknowledged that they had been significantly influenced by the various ideas, albeit controversial, put forward in this book by the thoughtful physicist.
Like many other works that influenced human thinking, What Is Life? presents points of view which, once internalized, appear to be almost self-evident truths. However, they are still ignored by many people who should understand what's what. How often do we hear that quantum effects are of little importance in biological research, or even that we eat food for energy? These examples highlight the enduring significance of Schrödinger's What Is Life? Without a doubt, it is worth re-reading!
Roger Penrose
Introduction
A scientist is expected to have full and comprehensive first-hand knowledge of things, and therefore should not write about something about which he is not an expert. As the saying goes, noblesse oblige3
The provision obliges ( fr.).
Now I ask you to forget about noblesse, if any, and be released from related obligations. My justification is this: from our forefathers we have inherited a strong desire for a single, all-encompassing knowledge. The very name of higher educational institutions reminds us that since ancient times and for many centuries the greatest attention has been paid to the aspect versatility. However, the growth - in breadth and depth - of various branches of knowledge over the last hundred or so years has forced us to face a strange dilemma. We clearly feel that we are just beginning to collect reliable material from which we can deduce the total sum of all known things. But on the other hand, now the individual mind can only master a small, specialized piece of knowledge.
I see only one way to deal with this dilemma (otherwise our true goal will be lost forever): someone must take upon himself the synthesis of facts and theories, even second-hand and incomplete, at the risk of making himself look like a fool.
That's my excuse.
Language difficulties should not be underestimated. The native language is like tailored clothing, and a person feels uncomfortable when he is deprived of access to it and is forced to use another language. I wish to express my gratitude to Dr Inkster (Trinity College, Dublin), Dr Patrick Brown (St Patrick's College, Maynooth) and, last but not least, Mr S. C. Roberts. It was not easy for them to fit new clothes to me and convince me to abandon the “original” turns. If some of them survived the editing of my friends, it is my fault.
The section headings were originally intended to provide a summary, and the text of each chapter should be read in continuo4
Continuously ( it.).
E. Sh.
Dublin
September 1944
The least free person thinks about death. In his wisdom he reflects not on death, but on life.
Spinoza. Ethics. Part IV, provision 67
Chapter 1
Classic physical approach to the subject
I think, therefore I exist.
R. Descartes
General nature and purpose of the study
This small book was born out of a series of public lectures given by a theoretical physicist to an audience of four hundred people, which did not shrink even after the initial warning about the complexity of the subject and that the lectures could not be called popular, although they practically did not use the physicist's most terrible weapon, mathematical deduction - not because the subject can be explained without the use of mathematics, but simply because it is too confusing for a complete mathematical description. Another feature that gave the lectures a certain popular flavor was the lecturer’s intention to explain to both biologists and physicists a fundamental idea lying at the intersection of biology and physics.
In fact, despite the variety of topics covered, the idea is intended to convey only one idea - a small commentary on a large and important issue. To avoid getting lost, let's make a short plan.
The big, important and highly debated question is this:
How do physics and chemistry explain events in space and time that occur within the spatial framework of a living organism?
The preliminary answer that this book attempts to establish and justify can be summarized as follows:
The obvious inability of modern physics and chemistry to explain such phenomena does not mean at all that these sciences cannot explain them.
Statistical physics. Fundamental difference in structure
This remark would be quite trivial if its sole purpose was to awaken hope for achieving in the future what was not achieved in the past. However, its meaning is much more optimistic: this inability has a detailed explanation.
Today, thanks to the brilliant work of biologists, mostly geneticists, over the last thirty to forty years, we know enough about the actual material structure of organisms and their workings to state and give the exact reason why: modern physics and chemistry cannot explain space-time events , occurring in a living organism.
The interactions of atoms in the vital parts of the body are fundamentally different from all the connections of atoms that have hitherto been the object of experimental and theoretical research by physicists and chemists. However, this difference, which I consider fundamental, may seem of little significance to anyone except a physicist who realizes that the laws of chemistry and physics are purely statistical. After all, it is from a statistical point of view that the structure of the vital parts of living organisms is so different from any piece of matter with which we, physicists and chemists, work physically in laboratories or mentally at a desk 5
This point is emphasized in two articles by F. J. Donnan, Scientia, XXIV, #78 (1918), 10 ( La science physico-chimique décrit-elle d’une façon adéquate les phénomènes biologiques?/ Is physical-chemical science capable of adequately describing biological phenomena?) and Smithsonian Report, 1929, p. 309 ( The mystery of life/ The mystery of life).
It is impossible to imagine that the laws and regularities discovered in this way can be directly applied to the behavior of systems that do not have the structure on which they are based.
A non-physicist is unlikely to be able to even grasp—let alone appreciate—the difference in “statistical structure” expressed in such abstract terms. To give life and color to the statement, let me mention something that will later be described in much more detail, namely, the most significant component of a living cell - the chromosomal fibril, which can be called aperiodic crystal. Until now in physics we have dealt only with periodic crystals. In the mind of a humble physicist, these are very interesting and complex objects; they are among the most amazing and ingenious material structures with which inanimate nature has puzzled him. However, compared to aperiodic crystals, they are simple and boring. The differences in texture can be compared to the difference between ordinary wallpaper, in which the same pattern is repeated over and over again at regular intervals, and skillful embroidery, such as Raphael's tapestry, where there is no boring repetition, but a complex, harmonious, meaningful design created by a great master.
By calling periodic crystals one of the most difficult objects of research, I meant a true physicist. Organic chemistry, exploring more and more intricate molecules, has come much closer to that “aperiodic crystal”, which, in my opinion, is the material carrier of life. It is not surprising that organic chemists have already made important contributions to the problem of life, while physicists have made almost nothing.
A naive physicist's approach to the subject
Now, having briefly outlined the main idea, or rather, the limits of our research, I will describe the line of attack. I propose first to consider the ideas of a naive physicist about organisms - that is, the ideas that can arise in the mind of a physicist who, having learned his physics, or rather, the statistical basis of science, begins to think about them and how they behave and function, and in the end he honestly asks himself whether, by means of what he has learned, from the point of view of his relatively simple, clear and modest science, he is able to make any significant contribution to the given problem.
It turns out that he is quite capable. Next, you need to compare his theoretical expectations with biological facts. It will turn out that, although in general his ideas seem very reasonable, they need significant correction. In this way we will gradually get closer to the correct point of view - or rather, to put it more modestly, the point of view that I consider to be correct.
I'm not sure if my approach is the best or simplest. However, he is mine. I myself was a “naive physicist”. And I could not find a simpler and clearer path to the goal than my crooked path.
Why are atoms so small?
A good way to develop the ideas of a naive physicist is to start with a strange, almost absurd question: why are atoms so small? Yes, they are really very small. Every piece of matter we deal with in everyday life is made up of many atoms. To convey this fact to the audience, numerous examples have been selected, the most impressive of which belongs to Lord Kelvin 6
Thomson, William, Baron Kelvin (1824–1907) - British mathematical physicist after whom the absolute unit of temperature is named.
Imagine being able to label molecules in a glass of water; then pour the contents of the glass into the ocean and mix thoroughly to distribute the labeled molecules evenly throughout the seven seas. If you subsequently collect a glass of water anywhere in the ocean, you will find about a hundred of your labeled molecules in it. Of course, there will not be exactly 100 of them (even if the calculations give exactly this result). There will be 88, or 95, or 107, or 112, but hardly 50 or 150. The expected "deviation" or "fluctuation" will be of the order of the square root of 100, that is, 10. The statistician will express it this way: you will find 100± 10 molecules. This comment can be ignored for now, but later we will use it to illustrate the statistical law √ n.
Real size of atoms 7
According to modern concepts, the atom does not have clear boundaries, and therefore the “size” of an atom is not a defined concept. However, we can characterize or, if you like, replace it by the distance between the centers of atoms in the solid or liquid state, but, of course, not in the gaseous state, in which it increases by about ten times at normal pressure and temperature. – Note auto
Approximately the wavelength of yellow light. This comparison is significant because wavelength roughly characterizes the size of the smallest object visible through a microscope. Thus, such an object contains thousands of millions of atoms. But why are atoms so small? Obviously, this question is a trick, since it is not really about the size of atoms at all, but about the size of organisms, or more precisely, our own bodies. An atom is small compared to a “civil” unit of length, such as a yard or meter. In atomic physics, we usually use the so-called angstrom (abbreviated Å), which is 10 –10 meters, or, in decimal notation, 0.0000000001 meters. The diameters of the atoms vary from 1 to 2 Å. The “civil” units, in comparison with which atoms are so small, are closely related to the size of our bodies. According to legend, we owe the yard to an English joker king who was asked by his advisors what unit to use. He extended his hand to the side and replied, “Use the distance from the middle of my chest to my fingertips, that will do.” Whether the story is true or not, it is important for our purposes. Of course, the king indicated a length comparable to his own body, realizing that any other would be uncomfortable. Despite his love of angstroms, the physicist prefers to be told that his new suit will require six and a half yards of tweed rather than sixty-five thousand million angstroms.
Thus, we have established that our question concerns the relationship between two sizes - the size of our body and the size of the atom. Given the undeniable primacy of the independent existence of the atom, this question should be reformulated as follows: why are our bodies so large in comparison with the atom?
I can imagine how many bright students of physics or chemistry have lamented the fact that all our sense organs, which form a very significant part of the organism, and therefore, from the point of view of the above-mentioned ratio, are composed of many atoms, are too crude to feel the influence of a single atom. We cannot see, or feel, or hear individual atoms. Our hypotheses about them differ markedly from direct discoveries made using the large senses and cannot be directly tested.
Is this necessary? Is there an internal reason for this? Can we trace this state of affairs to some primary principle in order to confirm and understand why nothing else is consistent with the laws of nature?
Finally we have a problem that a physicist can solve. The answer to all these questions is yes.
The work of the body requires specific physical laws
If this were not so, if we were organisms so sensitive that one or more atoms could make a tangible impression on our senses, God, what life would be! Let me emphasize: such an organism would certainly not have developed the orderly thinking that, after going through many early stages, would eventually form, among many other ideas, the idea of the atom.
We choose this point, but the following discussions also apply to the work of other organs, not just the brain and sensory system. However, the only thing that really interests us about ourselves is what we feel, think and perceive. Compared with the physiological process responsible for thinking and feeling, the others play a secondary role, at least from the point of view of man, if not from purely objective biology. Moreover, our task will become easier if we choose to study a process that is closely related to subjective events, although without realizing the true nature of this parallelism. From my point of view, it lies beyond the natural sciences - and probably beyond human understanding.
The question then arises before us: Why must an organ like our brain, and the sensory system associated with it, be composed of an incredible number of atoms in order for its physically variable state to correspond to highly developed thinking? Why does the above-mentioned task make this organ incompatible with being, either as a whole or through peripheral parts that interact directly with the environment, an instrument subtle and sensitive enough to register and respond to a single atom from without?
The reason is this: what we call thought (1) is itself ordered and (2) can only be used in relation to material, that is, perception or experience, that has a certain level of order. Two conclusions follow from this. First, to relate to thinking (as my brain relates to my thought), a physical organization must be highly ordered, and this means that the events that occur in it must obey strict physical laws with great precision. Secondly, the physical impressions which external bodies produce on this physically organized system obviously correspond to the perception and experience of the corresponding thought, forming its material, as I have expressed it. The physical interactions of our system with others must, as a rule, themselves possess a certain degree of physical order, that is, obey strict physical laws with a certain accuracy.
Physical laws are based on atomic statistics and are therefore approximate
Why is all this unattainable for an organism consisting of a limited number of atoms and capable of feeling the influence of one or several atoms?
Because we know that atoms are constantly in disordered thermal motion, which, so to speak, contradicts ordered behavior and prevents events realized by a small number of atoms from complying with known laws. Only when an incredibly large number of atoms are combined do statistical laws come into play, and they control the behavior of these clusters with a precision that increases with the number of atoms. It is in this way that events acquire the features of real order. All physical and chemical laws that play an important role in the life of organisms are statistical. Any other type of regularity and orderliness is disrupted and nullified by the continuous thermal movement of atoms.
Their accuracy is based on the large number of atoms involved. Example one (paramagnetism)
Let me illustrate this with a few examples, chosen at random from thousands of similar ones and therefore perhaps not the best for the reader who is hearing about this state of affairs for the first time - a position as fundamental in modern physics and chemistry as, for example, the cellular structure of organisms in biology, or Newton's law in astronomy, or even a sequence of integers - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5... - in mathematics. The following pages will hardly help the beginner to fully understand and appreciate the subject of discussion, which is associated with the brilliant names of Willard Gibbs 8
Boltzmann, Ludwig (1844–1906) - Austrian physicist, famous for his work on statistical mechanics and molecular kinetic theory.
And Ludwig Boltzmann 9
Gibbs, Josiah Willard (1839–1903) - American physicist and mathematician who was at the origins of vector analysis, the mathematical theory of thermodynamics and statistical physics.
And it is discussed in textbooks in the section “statistical thermodynamics”.
If you fill an elongated quartz tube with oxygen gas and place it in a magnetic field, the gas will become magnetized. I chose gas because it is a simpler case than a solid or liquid. The fact that the magnetization in this case will be extremely weak will not affect the theoretical reasoning. Magnetization occurs because the oxygen molecules are small magnets and are oriented parallel to the field, like a compass needle. But don't think that they all line up in parallel. By doubling the field strength, you will have double the magnetization in your oxygen container, and it will increase proportionately as you approach extremely strong fields.
Rice. 1. Paramagnetism
This is a clear example of a purely statistical law. The orientation caused by the field is constantly opposed by thermal motion, leading to arbitrary orientation. The result of this struggle is a slight predominance of acute angles between the dipole axis and the field over obtuse angles. The orientation of individual atoms is constantly changing, but on the average, due to their enormous number, they give a constant slight predominance of orientation in the direction of the field, proportional to this field. We owe this brilliant explanation to the French physicist P. Langevin 10
Langevin, Paul (1872–1946) - French physicist, author of the theory of diamagnetism and paramagnetism.
You can check it as follows. If the observed weak magnetization is indeed the result of opposing phenomena, namely a magnetic field, which wants to align all the molecules in parallel, and thermal motion, which tends to random orientation, then it is possible to increase magnetization not by increasing the magnetic field, but by weakening the thermal motion, that is, by lowering temperature. This is confirmed by experiment, according to which magnetization is inversely proportional to absolute temperature, in quantitative agreement with theory (Curie's law). Modern equipment even allows us, by lowering the temperature, to weaken the thermal movement so much that the orienting effect of the magnetic field will be able, if not to fully manifest itself, then to achieve a significant proportion of “full magnetization.” In this case, we no longer expect that doubling the field strength will double the magnetization; the latter will grow less and less, approaching the so-called saturation. This is also confirmed by experiment.
Note that this behavior is entirely dependent on the large number of molecules that interact to produce the observed magnetization. Otherwise, the latter would not be constant, but would fluctuate quite arbitrarily from second to second, indicating variable success in the struggle between thermal motion and the magnetic field.
Example two (Brownian motion, diffusion)
By filling the bottom of a closed glass container with a mist of tiny droplets, you will see that the top of the mist will gradually descend at a certain rate determined by the viscosity of the air and the size and specific density of the droplets. But after examining one of the drops under a microscope, you will find that it does not descend at a constant speed, but performs a very complex movement, the so-called Brownian movement, which only on average correlates with the overall settling.
Of course, these droplets are not atoms, but they are small and light enough to feel the influence of individual molecules constantly bombarding their surface. Therefore, the drops are deflected first in one direction or the other and only on average obey the action of gravity.
Rice. 2. Settling fog
Rice. 3. Brownian motion of a settling drop
This example demonstrates the fun and chaotic sensations we would experience if our senses perceived the effects of individual molecules. There are bacteria and other organisms that are so small that they are significantly affected by this phenomenon. Their movements are determined by the thermal vagaries of the environment; they simply have no choice. Those of them that have their own ability to move can move from place to place, but with difficulty, since thermal movement tosses them around like a fragile boat in a stormy sea.
The phenomenon is very similar to Brownian motion diffusion. Imagine a vessel filled with water in which a small amount of some colored substance, for example potassium permanganate, is dissolved, not in the same concentration, but as shown in Fig. 4, where the dots represent molecules of the dissolved substance (permanganate) and the concentration decreases from left to right. If this vessel is left alone, a slow process of “diffusion” will begin, transferring the permanganate from the left side of the vessel to the right, that is, from a place with a higher concentration to a place with a lower one, until the substance is evenly distributed in the water.
The amazing thing about this very simple and not very interesting process is that it is not based on some tendency or force that leads the permanganate molecules from a more populated area to a less populated one, like the inhabitants of a country moving to free regions. Nothing like this happens with our permanganate molecules. Each behaves independently of the others, whom they very rarely encounter. Each one - both in a populated area and in an empty one - is constantly experiencing impacts from water molecules and gradually moves in an unpredictable direction - sometimes to an area with greater concentration, sometimes to an area with less, or even to the side. The movement of such a molecule is often compared to the movement in open space of a blind person. He is obsessed with the desire to “walk”, but cannot choose a direction, and therefore constantly changes his course.
Rice. 4. Diffusion from left to right in a solution with different concentrations
That this random walk of each and every permanganate molecule should lead to a regular flow towards lower concentrations and ultimately to a uniform distribution is at first glance puzzling. If you divide the rice. 4 into thin slices with approximately constant concentration, the permanganate molecules contained in a given slice at a certain point in time are equally likely to move to the left or to the right due to random movement. However, this means that the plane separating adjacent slices will intersect more molecules coming from the left than from the right - simply because there are more molecules on the left that are involved in random motion. And as long as this is true, the result will be a regular flow from left to right - until a uniform distribution is achieved.
If we translate these arguments into mathematical language, the law of diffusion will be a partial differential equation:
I will spare the reader the explanation, although the meaning of this law can be expressed in simple language. Namely: the concentration at any particular point rises or falls with time in proportion to the comparative excess or deficiency of concentration in its infinitesimal surroundings. By the way, the law of thermal conductivity looks exactly the same, only instead of concentration there is temperature. I have cited this harsh “mathematically rigorous” law to emphasize that its physical accuracy must nevertheless be questioned on a case-by-case basis. It is based on chance and its validity is approximate. This is usually a very good approximation, but only due to the huge number of molecules involved in the phenomenon. The smaller their number, the stronger random deviations should be expected - and they are observed under unfavorable conditions.
Example three (measurement accuracy limits)
The last example is very similar to the second, but is of particular interest. A light body suspended on a long thin thread in an equilibrium orientation is often used by physicists to measure weak forces that deflect it from equilibrium, electric, magnetic or gravitational forces applied in such a way as to rotate the body about a vertical axis. Of course, the choice of a light body must correspond to the goals of the experiment. Continuous attempts to improve the accuracy of these popular "torsion balances" have revealed a curious limit, interesting in itself. If we take increasingly lighter bodies and thinner and longer threads - so that the equilibrium is sensitive to increasingly weaker forces - the limit is reached as soon as the suspended body begins to feel the influence of the thermal movement of the molecules of the environment and perform a continuous chaotic "dance" around the equilibrium position, like trembling drop. This behavior does not impose an absolute limit on the accuracy of measurements made using scales, but it does highlight a practical limit. The uncontrolled effect of thermal motion competes with the effect of the measured force and makes individual observed deviations insignificant. Many measurements must be taken to eliminate the influence of Brownian motion on the tool. I think this example is the most illustrative for our research, because our senses are also a kind of instrument. Now we see how useless they will become if they acquire such sensitivity.
Rule √n
I would like to add that I could choose as an illustration any physical or chemical law that has significance for an organism or its interactions with the environment. A detailed explanation may be more complex, but the essence will be the same, and therefore the description will become monotonous.
However, one important numerical statement should be mentioned regarding the error that should be expected from any physical law - the rule √ n. I will first illustrate it with a simple example and then generalize it.
If I assume that a certain gas under certain conditions - pressure and temperature - has a certain density, and declare that a certain volume (suitable for some experiment) under these conditions contains n gas molecules, you can be sure that, having checked my statement at a certain point in time, you will consider it erroneous, with a deviation of the order of √ n. Accordingly, if n= 100, the deviation will be about 10, and the relative error will be 10%. However, if n= 1,000,000, you will find a deviation of about 1000, and the relative error will be 0.1%. Roughly speaking, this statistical law is very general. The laws of physics and physical chemistry are imprecise, and the probable relative error for them is on the order of reasoning or experiment.
From this it follows again that in order to benefit from sufficiently precise laws, both in internal processes and in interaction with the external world, the organism must have a large structure. Otherwise, the number of interacting particles will be too small, and the “laws” will be inaccurate. A particularly strict requirement is the square root. Although a million is a very large number, an accuracy of 1000 to 1 does not seem too high if the rule purports to be a “law of nature.”
Human/ 10.10.2016 Konstantin Manuilov / 8.10.2011
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The book deserves to be read with attention and thought over by any person claiming to be a scientist. This is not hampered by the primitive semi-empiricism of quantum mechanics, the reason for which is the complete isolation of its creators (including the author of the book) from classical mechanics and electrodynamics. which it would be possible to obtain all the solutions to the problems of the theory of atoms and molecules, for the entire science of the motion of charged bodies under the influence of forces of mutual attraction and repulsion was solved in the 19th century by Ampere, Gauss and Weber, who relied on the solution to the problem of N bodies obtained by Newton. Nor the natural “aging” of some of the author’s calculations. And what about superstrings, what about the genome, they are smeared with the same thing. I’m just sorry for Lyudmil, Lenida and anonymous.”
What the hell is the solution to the N-body problem? Analytically it was not resolved for the case of three or more bodies, except in special cases. Taking this fact into account, it is easy to conclude that you like to understand the details of what you study - not at all. False erudition.
Nikolay/ 08/07/2016 People, I certainly don’t have the same education as you.
But you fools don't see the obvious.
You are looking in the wrong place and looking for the wrong thing.
Before you prove your truth and insult each other, you better unite.
AND OUR ENTIRE LIFE IS IN TIME, YOU WILL FIRST FIND THE ANSWER IN TIME, AND TIME WILL GIVE YOU AN ANSWER TO LIFE.
nnn/ 10/28/2015 Smith, I am an employee of a smaller institute, but I note that if science is “trampled” anywhere because of people like Lyudmila, then such science is worthless. This is just a word.
Smith/ 12/10/2012 Lyudmila, I am an employee of the Russian Academy of Sciences and your words are pseudoscientific heresy. Because of people like you, our science is marking time. Cosmits...why aren’t they giving me this kind of grass, I’m a law-abiding citizen?
Lyudmila Belik/ 01/09/2012 Years have passed of a useless attempt to persuade the official science of the Russian Federation to begin studying the physics of man - the eternal cosmite in the mortal biobody - with the DATE of transfer to the cosmos. The would-be academics kicked the bucket and began to rejuvenate themselves - losing their own cosmism forever - ugly.
And what? It remains to urge scientists to study them in DEATH, studying the build-up of properties in the head to create a nuclear explosion, open the gates in the neck and unction of their inner self - the cosmite “ON THE WAY” yu Well, and, naturally, how their bodies will emerge as rejuvenated academics.
They did not study the death of academician physicist V. Ginzburg in vain - well, it’s very revealing that he was squeezed out of the corpse for many days in a row, and then - even more terrible.
But the head of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Yu. Osipov, will come out even uglier. But there are dozens of articles about his loss of his own cosmism showing changes in the energy construct and light “with” in him.
Konstantin Manuilov/ 10/8/2011 The book deserves to be read with attention and thought over by any person claiming to be a scientist. This is not hampered by the primitive semi-empiricism of quantum mechanics, the reason for which is the complete isolation of its creators (including the author of the book) from classical mechanics and electrodynamics, with the help of which it would be possible to obtain all solutions to the problems of the theory of atoms and molecules, for the entire science of the movement of charged bodies under the influence of forces of mutual attraction and repulsion was solved in the 19th century by Ampere, Gauss and Weber, based on the solution of the N-body problem , obtained by Newton. Nor the natural “aging” of some of the author’s calculations. And what about superstrings, what about the genome, they are smeared with the same thing. I’m just sorry for Lyudmil, Lenida and anonymous.
Leonid/ 12/12/2010 I found this monograph in the library when I was a student. I apologize, but she didn’t make much of an impression, either from a physical or biological point of view. Much water has passed under the bridge since then, there has been progress in biophysics, but, alas, everything is going very slowly..
And it’s worth reading, if only because the author is Schrödinger!
anonymous/ 11/19/2010 Luda, please wipe off the foam, the genome is where the power is, and quantum theory is something to scare children, I know that.
Lyudmila Belik/ 05/04/2010 Finally, the TRUTH was offered to the people, when the people were completely fooled by the would-be biologists and the ruling physicists at the RAS - would-be academics - “the creators of immortality”. And their obscurantism has not been eliminated.
Lyudmila Belik/ 01/17/2010 The only theoretician-GENIUS-physicist who understood absolutely precisely that the basis of life is only QUANTUM theory, but the lone genius was pecked to death by a whole army of loud-mouthed biologists, destroyers of human science. And the funny thing is that the deciphered genome carrion was cheerfully passed off as life. And the worst happened - those in power in Russian science all shouted “HURRAY!” . Both embarrassing and funny. The consequences are catastrophic, and they also shout “Defend us in science!” in their Bulletins of the RAS Commission.
What is life?
Lectures given at Trinity College, Dublin in February 1943.
Moscow: State Publishing House of Foreign Literature, 1947 - p.150
Erwin Schrödinger
Professor at the Dublin Research Institute
WHAT IS LIFE
from a physics point of view?
WHAT IS LIFE?
The Physical Aspect of the
Living Cell
BRWIN SGHRODINGER
Senior Professor at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies
Translation from English and afterword by A. A. MALINOVSKY
Artist G. Riftin
Introduction
Homo liber nulla de re minus quam
de morte cogitat; et ejus sapientia
non mortis sed vitae meditatio est.
Spinoza, Ethica, P. IV, Prop. 67.
A free man is nothing like that
little does not think about death, and
his wisdom lies in reflection
not about death, but about life.
Spinoza, Ethics, Part IV, Theor. 67.
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Preface
It is generally believed that a scientist must have a thorough first-hand knowledge of a particular field of science, and it is therefore believed that he should not write on such matters in which he is not an expert. This is seen as a matter of noblesse oblige. However, in order to achieve my goal, I want to renounce noblesse and ask, in this regard, to release me from the obligations arising from it. My apologies are as follows.
We have inherited from our ancestors a keen desire for unified, all-encompassing knowledge. The very name given to the highest institutions of knowledge - universities - reminds us that from ancient times and for many centuries the universal nature of knowledge was the only thing in which there could be complete trust. But the expansion and deepening of various branches of knowledge during the last hundred wonderful years has presented us with a strange dilemma. We clearly feel that we are only now beginning to acquire reliable material in order to unite into one whole everything that we know; but on the other hand, it becomes almost impossible for one mind to completely master more than any one small specialized part of science.
I see no way out of this situation (without our main goal being lost forever) unless some of us venture to undertake a synthesis of facts and theories, even though our knowledge in some of these areas is incomplete and obtained at second hand and at least we ran the risk of appearing ignorant.
Let this serve as my apology.
Difficulties with language are also of great importance. Everyone’s native language is like a well-fitting garment, and you cannot feel completely free when your language cannot be at ease and when it must be replaced by another, new one. I am very grateful to Dr Inkster (Trinity College, Dublin), Dr Padraig Brown (St Patrick's College, Maynooth) and last but not least, Mr S. C. Roberts. They had a lot of trouble trying to fit me into new clothes, and this was aggravated by the fact that sometimes I did not want to give up my somewhat “original” personal style. If any of it survives despite the efforts of my friends to soften it, it must be attributed to me, and not to theirs.
It was originally assumed that the subheadings of numerous sections would have the nature of summary inscriptions in the margins, and the text of each chapter should be read in continue (continuously).
I am greatly indebted to Dr. Darlington and the publisher Endeavor for the illustration plates. They retain all the original details, although not all of these details are relevant to the content of the book.
Dublin, September, 1944. E. Sh.
A classical physicist's approach to the subject
Cogito, ergo sum
General nature and objectives of the study
This small book arose from a course of public lectures given by a theoretical physicist to an audience of about 400 people. The audience almost did not decrease, although from the very beginning it was warned that the subject of presentation was difficult and that the lectures could not be considered popular, despite the fact that the most terrible tool of a physicist - mathematical deduction - could hardly be used here. And not because the subject is so simple that it can be explained without mathematics, but rather the opposite - because it is too complicated and not entirely accessible to mathematics. Another feature that gave at least the appearance of popularity was the intention of the lecturer to make the main idea associated with both biology and physics clear to both physicists and biologists.
Indeed, despite the variety of topics included in the book, as a whole it should convey only one idea, only one small explanation of a large and important issue. In order not to deviate from our path, it will be useful to briefly outline our plan in advance.
The big, important and very often discussed question is this: how can physics and chemistry explain those phenomena in space and time that take place inside a living organism?
The preliminary answer that this little book will try to give and develop can be summed up as follows: the obvious inability of modern physics and chemistry to explain such phenomena gives absolutely no reason to doubt that they can be explained by these sciences.
Statistical physics. The main difference is in the structure
The foregoing remark would be very trivial if it were intended only to stimulate the hope of achieving in the future what was not achieved in the past. It, however, has a much more positive meaning, namely, that the inability of physics and chemistry to date to provide an answer is completely understandable.
Thanks to the skillful work of biologists, mainly geneticists, over the last 30 or 40 years, enough has now been known about the actual material structure of organisms and their functions to understand why modern physics and chemistry could not explain the phenomena in space and time that occur within living things. body.
The arrangement and interaction of atoms in the most important parts of the body are radically different from all those arrangements of atoms with which physicists and chemists have hitherto dealt in their experimental and theoretical research. However, this difference, which I just called fundamental, is of a kind that can easily seem insignificant to anyone except a physicist, imbued with the idea that the laws of physics and chemistry are thoroughly statistical. It is from a statistical point of view that the structure of the most important parts of a living organism is completely different from any piece of matter with which we, physicists and chemists, have hitherto dealt, practically - in our laboratories and theoretically - at our desks. Of course, it is difficult to imagine that the laws and rules that we have discovered would be directly applicable to the behavior of systems that do not have the structures on which these laws and rules are based.
It cannot be expected that a non-physicist could grasp (let alone appreciate) the entire difference in “statistical structure” formulated in terms so abstract as I have just done. To give life and color to my statement, let me first draw attention to something that will be explained in detail later, namely, that the most essential part of a living cell - the chromosomal thread - can justifiably be called an aperiodic crystal. In physics, we have so far dealt only with periodic crystals. To the mind of a simple physicist they are very interesting and complex objects; they constitute one of the most fascinating and complex structures with which inanimate nature confounds the intellect of the physicist; however, in comparison with aperiodic crystals they seem somewhat elementary and boring. The difference in structure here is the same as between ordinary wallpaper, in which the same pattern is repeated at regular intervals again and again, and a masterpiece of embroidery, say, a Raphael tapestry, which produces not boring repetition, but complex, consistent and full of meaning a drawing drawn by a great master.