Quantum Aspects Of Life

by Derek Abbott, Paul C.W. Davies

This book presents the hotly debated question of whether quantum mechanics plays a non-trivial role in biology. In a timely way, it sets out a distinct quantum biology agenda. The burgeoning fields of nanotechnology, biotechnology, quantum technology, and quantum information processing are now strongly converging. The acronym Bins, for Bio-Info-Nano-Systems, has been coined to describe the synergetic interface of these several disciplines. The living cell is an information replicating and processing system that is replete with naturally-evolved nanomachines, which at some level require a quantum mechanical description. As quantum engineering and nanotechnology meet, increasing use will be made of biological structures, or hybrids of biological and fabricated systems, for producing novel devices for information storage and processing and other tasks. An understanding of these systems at a quantum mechanical level will be indispensable.

Genres: Science, Biology, Physics, Nonfiction, Popular Science

468 pages, Paperback

First published August 31, 2008

Reviews

[DJ · Rating 2 out of 5]

A book exploring the possibilities that "non-trivial" quantum effects are exploited in biology, where "non-trivial" refers to all the interesting bits that make quantum mechanics fun - interference, entanglement, superposition, etc. In other words, of course all processes are quantum at some level, but the question is whether the process utilizes what we might call quantum computation.

With the creepiest cover photo I've ever encountered (a kaleidoscope view of some impish man's grinning face) and title font that would even make Liberace cringe, this book is not trying very hard to overcome new age stereotyping. Of course, if an unsuspecting "quantum healer" were to crack open the book, they would summarily be bludgeoned to death by wavefunctions and unitary operators.

This is the strange dichotomy of quantum biology - at the intersection of cutting-edge, speculative science and crackpot theories of consciousness, it's hard to separate science from pseudoscience. This collection of articles hits on everything from photosynthesis and the origin of life to quantum game theory and "quantum transmemetic intelligence."

You are forewarned - 95% of the ideas in this book will probably end up in a museum down the hall from the ether and corpuscle theories of light under "those silly theories that early 21st century scientists tossed around." And yet, on the off chance that one of the contributors is actually on to something, you may be reading the earliest indications of a new and fascinating field at the intersection of theoretical physics and biology.

[Nick Black]

Ehh, I refuse to purchase this until it's available more cheaply. C'mon Amazon, big money, big money...