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What is Life?: With Mind and Matter and Autobiographical Sketches
Abstract
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.
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“This state of affairs conforms to the resolution [134] of Schrodinger's paradox regarding how living cells avoid decay into chaos despite the second law of thermodynamics [135].”
From Systems protobiology: origin of life in lipid catalytic networks (2018) · cites this paper as [135]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Schrödinger, E., & Penrose, R.
- Venue
- Cambridge University Press eBooks
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press
- Published
- 1992-01-31
- OpenAlex
- W2495467174
- Cited by
- 568
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 38 · 2025: 31 · 2024: 33 · 2023: 52 · 2022: 19 · 2021: 31 · 2020: 23 · 2019: 18 · 2018: 24 · 2017: 19 · 2016: 22 · 2015: 26 · 2014: 24 · 2013: 24 · 2012: 25
- FWCI
- 0.89
- Type
- book
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Cambridge University Press eBooks (publishedVersion)
- CERN Document Server (European Organization for Nuclear Research) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History and Philosophy of Science › Philosophy of Biology and Scientific Explanation
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Origins and Evolution of Life
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History and Philosophy of Science › History of Science and Medicine
- Keywords
- Erwin Schrödinger, What is Life?, mind and matter, consciousness, evolution of life, molecular biology origins, DNA structure, philosophy of mind, physics and biology
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