What is Life? the Physical Aspect of the Living Cell

First published in 1944 from lectures given in Dublin, this book asks how living matter keeps order in a physical world of entropy. Writing as a physicist, Schrodinger treats the gene as an aperiodic crystal, discusses a hereditary code-script, and argues that organisms feed on negative entropy. He reviews what was then known of mutation, chromosomes, and statistical physics, and he speculates about the molecular structure that could store and copy biological information. The chapters are linked lectures, not laboratory reports. The book is a work of scientific argument, not a biology textbook and not a memoir.

Bound in pale blue-grey moire silk with a gilt design and black spine title. Dark blue slipcase.