Quantum Aspects Of Life

by Abbott, Derek; Davies, Paul C. w.; Pati, Arun K.; Penrose, Roger

• ISBN13: 9781848162532
• ISBN10: 1848162537
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-11-15
• Publisher: World Scientific Pub Co Inc

Summary

"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 nanomechanics, 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."--BOOK JACKET.

Table of Contents

Emergence and Complexity	p. 1
A Quantum Origin of Life?	p. 3
Quantum Mechanics and Emergence	p. 19
Quantum Mechanisms in Biology	p. 31
Quantum Coherence and the Search for the First Replicator	p. 33
Ultrafast Quantum Dynamics in Photosynthesis	p. 51
Modeling Quantum Decoherence in Biomolecules	p. 71
The Biological Evidence	p. 95
Molecular Evolution: A Role for Quantum Mechanics in the Dynamics of Molecular Machines that Read and Write DNA	p. 97
Memory Depends on the Cytoskeleton, but is it Quantum?	p. 109
Quantum Metabolism and Allometric Scaling Relations in Biology	p. 127
Spectroscopy of the Genetic Code	p. 147
Towards Understanding the Origin of Genetic Languages	p. 187
Artificial Quantum Life	p. 221
Can Arbitrary Quantum Systems Undergo Self-replication?	p. 223
A Semi-quantum Version of the Game of Life	p. 233
The Debate	p. 311
Dreams versus Reality: Plenary Debate Session on Quantum Computing	p. 313
Plenary Debate: Quantum Effects in Biology: Trivial or Not?	p. 349
Nontrivial Quantum Effects in Biology: A Skeptical Physicists' View	p. 381
That's Life! - The Geometry of [pi] Electron Clouds	p. 403
Index	p. 435
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.