2014 was a fine year for popular science with books that opened up new vistas cogently and elegantly for a large audience. Several made a huge impact on me but Jim Al-Khalili and Johnjoe McFadden’s Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology administered the biggest shock. I’ve never really got on with matters quantum and comforted myself in my ignorance with the lazy assumption, often quoted, that quantum phenomena are only applicable to their tiny realm: we live in the big, wide world and can ignore its counterintuitive findings, not only in daily life but in other sciences, especially biological science.
There is now a wealth of evidence, expertly and entertainingly marshal led by Al-Khali and McFadden, showing that it is precisely in living processes that quantum effects are seen. In popularising this revolutionary idea they have the advantage that quantum mechanics seems to be involved with many familiar and beautiful aspects of nature and to provide answers to some of the greatest mysteries. A list: the homing of robins and monarch butterflies; the rapid metamorphosis of a tadpole into a frog; how do our rather few olfactory genes cope with so many identifiable odours? how does photosynthesis capture light at almost 100% efficiency; how does DNA replicate so faithfully? Quantum phenomena seem to be implicated in all of these. It is early days but we are going to have to get used to the fact that we really do live in a quantum world.
There is now a wealth of evidence, expertly and entertainingly marshal led by Al-Khali and McFadden, showing that it is precisely in living processes that quantum effects are seen. In popularising this revolutionary idea they have the advantage that quantum mechanics seems to be involved with many familiar and beautiful aspects of nature and to provide answers to some of the greatest mysteries. A list: the homing of robins and monarch butterflies; the rapid metamorphosis of a tadpole into a frog; how do our rather few olfactory genes cope with so many identifiable odours? how does photosynthesis capture light at almost 100% efficiency; how does DNA replicate so faithfully? Quantum phenomena seem to be implicated in all of these. It is early days but we are going to have to get used to the fact that we really do live in a quantum world.
RSS Feed
