What Is Life? cover art

What Is Life?

With Mind and Matter and Autobiographical Sketches

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What Is Life?

By: Erwin Schrödinger, Roger Penrose - foreword
Narrated by: Bob Souer
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About this listen

Nobel laureate Erwin Schrödinger's What is Life? is one of the great science classics of the 20th century. A distinguished physicist's exploration of the question which lies at the heart of biology, it was written for the layman but proved one of the spurs to the birth of molecular biology and the subsequent discovery of the structure of DNA. The philosopher Karl Popper hailed it as a "beautiful and important book" by "a great man to whom I owe a personal debt for many exciting discussions."

It appears here together with "Mind and Matter", his essay investigating a relationship which has eluded and puzzled philosophers since the earliest times. Schrödinger asks what place consciousness occupies in the evolution of life and what part the state of development of the human mind plays in moral questions.

Brought together with these two classics are Schrödinger's autobiographical sketches. They offer a fascinating fragmentary account of his life as a background to his scientific writings, making this volume a valuable addition to the shelves of scientist and layman alike.

©1967 Cambridge University Press (P)2019 Tantor Biological Sciences Philosophy Physics Science Biography Mathematics Popular Science

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All stars
Most relevant
I was surprised by how approachable Schrodinger writes!Great mind, an amazing human and a good citizen of the world.Well worth listen even if you are not interested in physics.

Quantum genius

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In a time of uncertainty it is reassuring to find such a human rendition of physics and philosophy to offer a genuine meaning of life. From the off the Nobel Prize winners voice comes through the readers interpretation. A book that can be read or listened to on many levels. It only leaves me now to go and seek out a hard copy for my collection and listen to it again. Especially the very last chapter that if I have one suggestion could be listened to first rather than last. This is only to set you up for learning that the subjective world can be understood backwards and forwards and Schrodinger and his cat will show you how and why.

Finding Schrodinger’s Cat.

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Loved the fact that his independent observations and mindset parallels many great thinkers. It seems there are essential truths..

Fascinating

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Schrödingers script is brilliant. so many interesting ideas.
on the narrator: if you can't speak German please don't read German. it's horrendous. as a German-native speaker I can't understand a single word the narrator is "butchering" whilst pretending to pronounce the simplest German words. I have to read the original to know what Schrödinger actually said.

great book. horrible narration

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Well worth a thousand reads more than the first and with audiobook as the next best if not the ultimate thing to aid learning as the best companion

Excellent

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