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What is Life? | |
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Preface | |
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The Classical Physicist's Approach to the Subject | |
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The general character and the purpose of the investigation | |
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Statistical physics. The fundamental difference in structure | |
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The naive physicist's approach to the subject | |
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Why are the atoms so small? | |
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The working of an organism requires exact physical laws | |
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Physical laws rest on atomic statistics and are therefore only approximate | |
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Their precision is based on the large number of atoms intervening, 1st example (paramagnetism) | |
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2nd example (Brownian movement, diffusion) | |
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3rd example (limits of accuracy of measuring) | |
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The √n rule | |
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The Hereditary Mechanism | |
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The classical physicist's expectation, far from being trivial, is wrong | |
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The hereditary code-script (chromosomes) | |
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Growth of the body by cell division (mitosis) | |
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In mitosis every chromosome is duplicated | |
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Reductive division (meiosis) and fertilization (syngamy) | |
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Haploid individuals | |
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The outstanding relevance of the reductive division | |
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Crossing-over. Location of properties | |
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Maximum size of a gene | |
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Small numbers | |
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Permanence | |
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Mutations | |
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'Jump-like' mutations - the working-ground of natural selection | |
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They breed true, i.e. they are perfectly inherited | |
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Localization. Recessivity and Dominance | |
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Introducing some technical language | |
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The harmful effect of close-breeding | |
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General and historical remarks | |
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The necessity of mutation being a rare event | |
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Mutations induced by X-rays | |
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First law. Mutation is a single event | |
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Second law. Localization of the event | |
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The Quantum | |
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Mechanical Evidence | |
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Permanence unexplainable by classical physics | |
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Explicable by quantum theory | |
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Quantum theory - discrete states -quantum jumps | |
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Molecules | |
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Their stability dependent on temperature | |
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Mathematical interlude | |
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First amendment | |
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Second amendment | |
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Delbr�ck's Model Discussed and Tested | |
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The general picture of the hereditary substance | |
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The uniqueness of the picture | |
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Some traditional misconceptions | |
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Different 'states' of matter | |
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The distinction that really matters | |
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The aperiodic solid | |
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The variety of contents compressed in the miniature code | |
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Comparison with facts: degree of stability; discontinuity of mutations | |
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Stability of naturally selected genes | |
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The sometimes lower stability of mutants | |
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Temperature influences unstable genes less than stable ones | |
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How X-rays produce mutation | |
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Their efficiency does not depend on spontaneous mutability | |
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Reversible mutations | |
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Order, Disorder and Entropy | |
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A remarkable general conclusion from the model | |
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Order based on order | |
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Living matter evades the decay to equilibrium | |
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It feeds on 'negative entropy' | |
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What is entropy? | |
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The statistical meaning of entropy | |
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Organization maintained by extracting 'order' from the environment | |
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Is Life Based on the Laws of Physics? 76 | |
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New laws to be expected in the organism | |
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Reviewing the biological situation | |
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Summarizing the physical situation | |
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The striking contrast | |
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Two ways of producing orderliness | |
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The new principle is not alien to physics | |
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The motion of a clock | |
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Clockwork after all statistical | |
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Nernst's Theorem | |
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The pendulum clock is virtually at zero temperature | |
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The relation between clockwork and organism | |
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Epilogue. On Determinism and Free Will 86 | |
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Mind and Matter | |
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The Physical Basis of Consciousness | |
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The problem | |
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A tentative answer | |
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Ethics | |
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The Future of Understanding | |
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A biological blind alley? | |
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The apparent gloom of Darwinism | |
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Behaviour influences selection | |
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Feigned Lamarckism | |
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Genetic fixation of habits and skills | |
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Dangers to intellectual evolution | |
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The Principle of Objectivation | |
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the arithmetical paradox: the oneness of mind | |
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Science and Religion | |
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The Mystery of the Sensual Qualities I53 | |
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Autobiographical Sketches 165 | |
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Translated by Schr�dinger's granddaughter Verena | |