Quantum Aspects of Life

Quantum Aspects of Life
AuthorDerek Abbott, Paul C. W. Davies, Arun K. Pati (Eds.)
With foreword by Sir Roger Penrose
LanguageEnglish
SubjectPhysics and biophysics
GenreNon-fiction; science text
PublisherImperial College Press
Publication date
2008
Publication placeUnited Kingdom
Media typePrint
Pages581 pp.
ISBN978-1848162532

Quantum Aspects of Life, a book published in 2008 with a foreword by Roger Penrose, explores the open question of the role of quantum mechanics at molecular scales of relevance to biology. The book contains chapters written by various world-experts from a 2003 symposium and includes two debates from 2003 to 2004; giving rise to a mix of both sceptical and sympathetic viewpoints. The book addresses questions of quantum physics, biophysics, nanoscience, quantum chemistry, mathematical biology, complexity theory, and philosophy that are inspired by the 1944 seminal book What Is Life? by Erwin Schrödinger.

Contents

Section 1: Emergence and Complexity

Section 2: Quantum Mechanisms in Biology

  • Chapter 3: "Quantum Coherence and the Search for the First Replicator" by Jim Al-Khalili and Johnjoe McFadden
  • Chapter 4: "Ultrafast Quantum Dynamics in Photosynthesis" by Alexandra Olaya-Castro, Francesca Fassioli Olsen, Chiu Fan Lee, and Neil F. Johnson
  • Chapter 5: "Modeling Quantum Decoherence in Biomolecules" by Jacques Bothma, Joel Gilmore, and Ross H. McKenzie

Section 3: The Biological Evidence

  • Chapter 6: "Molecular Evolution: A Role for Quantum Mechanics in the Dynamics of Molecular Machines that Read and Write DNA" by Anita Goel
  • Chapter 7: "Memory Depends on the Cytoskeleton, but is it Quantum?" by Andreas Mershin and Dimitri V. Nanopoulos
  • Chapter 8: "Quantum Metabolism and Allometric Scaling Relations in Biology" by Lloyd Demetrius
  • Chapter 9: "Spectroscopy of the Genetic Code" by Jim D. Bashford and Peter D. Jarvis
  • Chapter 10: "Towards Understanding the Origin of Genetic Languages" by Apoorva D. Patel

Section 4: Artificial Quantum Life

Section 5: The Debate

See also

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.