What Is Life?: 8 key ideas
The core ideas of What Is Life?, each in under a minute, written in our own words. Want the full depth? Get the book.
- IDEA 1 OF 8
Physics can explain life
Schrödinger, a famous physicist, asks how the laws of physics and chemistry can account for living things.
His short book, based on lectures in Dublin, inspired many later scientists. He believed living things should not be treated as beyond science.
- IDEA 2 OF 8
Life creates order from order
Schrödinger notes that living things keep themselves highly ordered, while the universe tends towards disorder.
He suggests that life maintains its order by drawing on order from its surroundings. Life does this by feeding on its surroundings, not by escaping the rules.
- IDEA 3 OF 8
Genes hold a hidden code
Schrödinger suggests that hereditary information is stored in a kind of code-script inside cells.
This code contains the instructions for building and running a living thing. A small amount of material must carry a great deal of information.
- IDEA 4 OF 8
The gene is an aperiodic crystal
Schrödinger proposes that genes are like crystals that do not repeat regularly, able to hold large amounts of information.
This idea anticipated the discovery of DNA's structure. Such a structure could store a long message in a small space.
- IDEA 5 OF 8
Mutations are quantum jumps
Schrödinger explains mutations as sudden changes in molecules, similar to quantum jumps.
This explained why genes stay stable but can occasionally change. A change in one small cluster of atoms can alter a trait that is then passed down.
- IDEA 6 OF 8
Life feeds on negative entropy
Schrödinger argues that living things avoid decay by taking in order from food and sunlight.
He calls this feeding on negative entropy, a phrase that sparked much discussion. In his picture, living things must keep taking in order to stay alive.
- IDEA 7 OF 8
Genes are surprisingly stable
Schrödinger asks how tiny genes can stay unchanged across many generations.
He uses quantum physics to explain this stability. Ordinary heat motion would normally scramble such small groups of atoms, so their lasting stability needed a special explanation.
- IDEA 8 OF 8
The book inspired biologists
Schrödinger's ideas inspired scientists such as Watson and Crick to study the molecular basis of life.
The book helped launch molecular biology. Many later researchers said that reading it changed the direction of their careers.
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