What is Life? & Other Scientific Essays

Erwin Schrödinger, who won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1933, is known throughout the world for his work on wave mechanics and quantum theory. Though he is a specialist, he challenges the role of specialist imposed upon today’s scientist who “is supposed to have a complete and thorough knowledge at first hand of some subjects, and therefore  is usually expected not to write on any topic of which he is not a master.” In the title essay, he confronts the great riddle of the growth of cells from the point of view of physics, and especially of quantum theory, to see what light modern physics sheds on the genetic transmission and mutation of personal characteristics. He reveals the wide range of his interests in the other writings included here.