What Is Life? The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell. Based on Lectures Delivered Under the Auspices of the Institute at Trinity College, Dublin, in February 1943.

SCHRÖDINGER, Erwin.

Published by Cambridge: at the University Press, 1944

First edition, first impression, of this influential excursion into biology by a Nobel laureate in Physics. It was described by Watson in his autobiography as "a major factor in [Crick's] leaving physics and developing an interest in biology. the book very elegantly propounded the belief that genes were the key components of living cells and that, to understand what life is, we must know how genes act" (p. 13). Schrödinger introduces the idea of a "code-script", or an "aperiodic crystal", containing genetic information in its arrangement of covalent chemical bonds; although nucleic acids had already been isolated by Friedrich Miescher in 1869, their structure and specific role in reproduction were still unknown. Schrödinger's carefully reasoned conceptualization provided the basis for any future search for genetic material. Bridging biology and physics "without privileging either", the present volume "helped to make influential biologists out of several physicists: Crick, Seymour Benzer, and Maurice Wilkins, among others" (Ball, p. 550). This book was based on Schrödinger's popular lectures delivered at Trinity College, Dublin, after he had been exiled from Austria during the Second World War. Schrödinger had been personally invited to settle in Ireland by Taoiseach Éamon de Valera to help establish the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. Phillip Ball, "Schrödinger's cat among biology's pigeons: 75 years of What Is Life?", Nature, vol. 560, 2018; James D. Watson, The Double Helix, 1968. Octavo. 4 plates on 2 leaves, numerous diagrams within text. Original green cloth, spine lettered in gilt. With dust jacket. Cloth and gilt bright, slight rubbing to extremities, spine ends bruised, occasional neat pencil annotations signifying close reading of text; jacket extremities shelf worn and chipped, spine browned, a few marks and scratches to panels, unclipped: a near-fine copy in very good dust jacket. Seller Inventory # 164252

Bibliographic Details

Title: What Is Life? The Physical Aspect of the ...
Publisher: Cambridge: at the University Press, 1944
Edition: 1st Edition