What is Life? The Next Fifty Years
Speculations on the Future of Biology

Presents the views of eminent scientists on current problems in biology.

Michael P. Murphy (Edited by), Luke A. J. O'Neill (Edited by)

9780521599399, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 13 March 1997

204 pages, 6 b/w illus.
22.8 x 15.3 x 1.1 cm, 0.345 kg

'... if you want one slim book that contains as many stimulating ideas as a small library, this is it.' Alan Anderson, New Scientist

Erwin Schrödinger's book What is Life? had a tremendous influence on the development of molecular biology, stimulating scientists such as Watson and Crick to explore the physical basis of life. Much of the appeal of Schrödinger's book lay in its approach to the central problems in biology - heredity and how organisms use energy to maintain order - from a physicist's perspective. At Trinity College, Dublin a number of outstanding scientists from a range of disciplines gathered to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of What is Life? and following Schrödinger's example fifty years previously, presented their views on the current central problems in biology. The contributors to this volume include Stephen Jay Gould, Roger Penrose, Jared Diamond, Manfred Eigen, John Maynard Smith, Christien de Duve and Lewis Wolpert. This collection is essential reading for anyone interested in biology and its future.

1. What is life? The next fifty years: an introduction Michael P. Murphy and Luke A. J. O'Neill
2. What will endure of twentieth-century biology? Manfred Eigen
3. What is Life? as a problem in history Stephen Jay Gould
4. The evolution of human inventiveness Jared Diamond
5. Development: is the egg computable or could we generate an angel? Lewis Wolpert
6. Language and life John Maynard Smith and Eörs Szthmáry
7. RNA without protein or protein without RNA? Christian de Duve
8. What is life?: Was Schrödinger right? Stuart A. Kauffman
9. Why do we need a new physics of the mind? Roger Penrose
10. Do the laws of nature evolve? Walter Thirring
11. New laws to be expected in the organism: synergetics of brain and behaviour,J. A. Scott Kelso and Herman Haken
12. Order from disorder: the thermodynamics of complexity in biology Eric D. Schneider and James J. Kay
13. Reminiscences Ruth Braunizer.

Subject Areas: Popular science [PDZ]