Download : What is LIFE? by ERWIN SCHRODINGER
What
is life? The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell.
Based
on lectures delivered under the auspices of the Dublin Institute for
Advanced Studies at Trinity College, Dublin, in February 1943.
To
the memory of My Parents
Preface
A
scientist is supposed to have a complete and thorough I of knowledge,
at first hand, of some subjects and, therefore, is usually expected
not to write on any topic of which he is not a life, master. This is
regarded as a matter of noblesse oblige. For the present purpose I
beg to renounce the noblesse, if any, and to be the freed of the
ensuing obligation. My excuse is as follows: We have inherited from
our forefathers the keen longing for unified, all-embracing
knowledge. The very name given to the highest institutions of
learning reminds us, that from antiquity to and throughout many
centuries the universal aspect has been the only one to be given full
credit. But the spread, both in and width and depth, of the
multifarious branches of knowledge by during the last hundred odd
years has confronted us with a queer dilemma. We feel clearly that we
are only now beginning to acquire reliable material for welding
together the sum total of all that is known into a whole; but, on the
other hand, it has become next to impossible for a single mind fully
to command more than a small specialized portion of it. I can see no
other escape from this dilemma (lest our true who aim be lost for
ever) than that some of us should venture to embark on a synthesis of
facts and theories, albeit with second-hand and incomplete knowledge
of some of them -and at the risk of making fools of ourselves. So
much for my apology. The difficulties of language are not negligible.
One's native speech is a closely fitting garment, and one never feels
quite at ease when it is not immediately available and has to be
replaced by another. My thanks are due to Dr Inkster (Trinity
College, Dublin), to Dr Padraig Browne (St Patrick's College,
Maynooth) and, last but not least, to Mr S. C. Roberts. They were put
to great trouble to fit the new garment on me and to even greater
trouble by my occasional reluctance to give up some 'original'
fashion of my own. Should some of it have survived the mitigating
tendency of my friends, it is to be put at my door, not at theirs.
The headlines of the numerous sections were originally intended to be
marginal summaries, and the text of every chapter should be read in
continuo. E.S. Dublin September 1944 Homo liber nulla de re minus
quam de morte cogitat; et ejus sapientia non mortis sed vitae
meditatio est. SPINOZA'S Ethics, Pt IV, Prop. 67 (There is nothing
over which a free man ponders less than death; his wisdom is, to
meditate not on death but on life.)
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