MOLECULAR ORIENTATION IN LIVING MATTER

Molecular Orientation in Living Matter

Living matter offers many examples of what appears to be action exerted at a distance. I am not attempting to renew the discussion of the classical problem of physics because the action at a distance which I have in mind is not exerted through vacuous space but through matter, and its peculiarity lies in the fact that the intervening matter seems to act in a purely passive way. The example whic...

Bridging Nonliving and Living Matter

Assembling non-biological materials (geomaterials) into a proto-organism constitutes a bridge between nonliving and living matter. In this article we present a simple step-by-step route to assemble a proto-organism. Many pictures have been proposed to describe this transition within the origins-of-life and artificial life communities, and more recently alternative pictures have been emerging fr...

Quantum Hardware of Living Matter

The Organization of Living Matter.

Introduction.-Living systems consist of relatively few common chemical elements,' yet have unique properties which set them aside from the rest of matter: they are able to control their exchanges with the surrounding medium and to respond to changes therein; they can transform energy and metabolize matter; and especially they are capable of self-duplication. These remarkable properties, express...

Electromagnetic response of living matter

This thesis deals with theoretical physics problems related to the interactions between living matter and electromagnetic fields. The five research papers included provide an understanding of the physical mechanisms underlying such interactions. The introductory part of the thesis is an attempt to connect as well as provide a background for the papers. Below follows a summary of the results obt...