《Erwin Schramp;ouml;dinger - What Is Life》.pdf

WHAT IS LIFE? numerous sections were originally intended to be ERWIN SCHRODINGER marginal summaries, and the text of every First published 1944 chapter should be read in continuo. E.S. Dublin September 1944 What is life? The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell. Homo liber nulla de re minus quam de morte Based on lectures delivered under the auspices of cogitat; et ejus sapientia non mortis sed vitae the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies at meditatio est. SPINOZAS Ethics, Pt IV, Prop . Trinity College, Dublin , in February 1943. 67 To the memory of My Parents (There is nothing over which a free man ponders Preface less than death ; his wisdom is, to meditate not on A scientist is supposed to have a complete and death but on life.) thorough I of knowledge, at first hand, of some subj ects and, therefore, is usually expected not to CHAPTER 1 write on any topic of which he is not a life, The Classical Physicists Approach to the Subj ect master. This is regarded as a matter of noblesse oblige. For the present purpose I beg to renounce This little book arose from a course of public the noblesse, if any, and to be the freed of the lectures, delivered by a theoretical physicist to an ensuing obligation. My excuse is as follows: We audience of about four hundred which did not have inherited from our forefathers the keen substantially dwindle, though warned at the longing for unified, all-embracing knowledge. outset that the subj ect-matter was a diffi