In Ireland Schrödinger gave a series of public lectures, which were later published as What Is Life? He was interested in examining the phenomenon of life from the perspective of a physicist, and in particular an expert on quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the book is Schrödinger’s deduction that the stability of genetic information over time is best explained by positing the existence of some sort of “aperiodic crystal” that stored the information in its chemical structure. This insight helped inspire Francis Crick to leave physics in favor
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