More often than not, physicists are reductionists and so tend to look beneath complex phenomena for explanations that rely on properties and interactions of simpler constituents. Whereas biologists often define life by its core activities—life imbibes raw materials for powering self-sustaining functions, eliminates waste generated by the process, and in the most successful instances reproduces—Schrödinger sought an answer to “What is life?” that would draw on life’s fundamental physical underpinnings.
