What is Life?: With Mind and Matter and Autobiographical Sketches

Erwin Schrödinger

Cambridge University Press, Jan 31, 1992 - Science - 184 pages

Nobel laureate Erwin Schrödinger's What is Life? is one of the great science classics of the twentieth century. A distinguished physicist's exploration of the question which lies at the heart of biology, it was written for the layman, but proved one of the spurs to the birth of molecular biology and the subsequent discovery of the structure of DNA. The philosopher Karl Popper hailed it as a 'beautiful and important book' by 'a great man to whom I owe a personal debt for many exciting discussions'. It appears here together with Mind and Matter, his essay investigating a relationship which has eluded and puzzled philosophers since the earliest times. Schrodinger asks what place consciousness occupies in the evolution of life, and what part the state of development of the human mind plays in moral questions. Brought together with these two classics are Schrödinger's autobiographical sketches, published and translated here for the first time. They offer a fascinating fragmentary account of his life as a background to his scientific writings, making this volume a valuable additon to the shelves of scientist and layman alike.

What people are saying

Review: What Is Life? with Mind and Matter and Autobiographical Sketches

User Review  - Mitch Allen - Goodreads

Astonishing that so many of the physicists responsible for the foundational theories behind quantum physics turned to writing philosophical texts. Well, not so astonishing in that the implications of ...

Review: What Is Life? with Mind and Matter and Autobiographical Sketches

User Review  - Henry - Goodreads

Here is a prime example of a brilliant and creative thinker - read it and be inspired at his process.

Contents

• II: 3
• III: 19
• IV: 32
• V: 46
• VI: 56
• VII: 67
• VIII: 76
• IX: 86
• X: 91
• XI: 93
• XII: 103
• XIII: 117
• XIV: 128
• XV: 140
• XVI: 153
• XVII: 165

About the author

Born and educated in Vienna, Erwin Schrodinger received his Ph.D. in 1910 from the University of Vienna. He developed the theory of wave mechanics (1925--26). For this theory, which furnished a solid mathematical explanation of quantum theory, Schrodinger shared the Nobel Prize in 1933 with Paul Dirac. Schrodinger was dissatisfied with Niels Bohr's early quantum theory of the atom, objecting to the many arbitrary quantum rules imposed. Building on Louis-Victor De Broglie's idea that a moving atomic particle has a wave character, Schrodinger developed a famous wave equation that describes the behavior of an electron orbiting the nucleus of an atom. When applied to the hydrogen atom, the equation yielded all the results of Bohr and De Broglie, and was also used as a tool to solve a wide range of new problems in which quantization occurs. In 1927 Schrodinger succeeded Max Planck at the University of Berlin but resigned in 1933 when the Nazis came to power. He left then for England, becoming a guest professor at Oxford University. In 1936 he returned to Austria, but then fled in 1938 under the threat of Nazi arrest and was invited to Dublin's newly established Institute for Advanced Studies. He remained there from 1940 until his retirement in 1956, when he returned to his native Austria and to the University of Vienna, where he held his last chair in theoretical physics. In 1944 Schrodinger published What Is Life? The Physical Aspects of a Living Cell, a book that had a tremendous impact on a new generation of scientists. The book directed young physicists who were disillusioned by the Hiroshima bombing to an unexplored discipline free of military applications---molecular biology. Schrodinger proposed the existence of a molecular code as the genetic basis of life, inspiring an entire generation to explore this idea.

Bibliographic information

• Title: What is Life?: With Mind and Matter and Autobiographical Sketches; A Canto Book Series; Cambridge paperback library; Cambridge paperbacks; Cambridge paperbacks: Science; Canto (Cambridge University Press); Canto Series
• Author: Erwin Schrödinger
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1992
• ISBN: 0521427088, 9780521427081
• Length: 184 pages
• Subjects: Philosophy / Reference; Science / Physics / General