Related papers: Schr\"{o}dinger's "What is Life?" at 75
Experience shows that disciplinary science cannot describe life without contradictions. We show that one of the fundamental reasons is the disciplinarity itself: the disciplines deal with a limited set of quantities. This way some 'outlaw'…
The main mystery of quantum mechanics is contained in Wheeler's delayed choice experiment, which shows that the past is determined by our choice of what quantum property to observe. This gives the observer a participatory role in deciding…
With unprecedented advances in genetic engineering we are starting to see progressively more original examples of synthetic life. As such organisms become more common it is desirable to be able to distinguish between natural and artificial…
I examine some recent findings in cosmology and their potential implications for the emergence of life in the universe. In particular, I discuss the requirements for carbon-based life, anthropic considerations with respect to the nature of…
In this article I chronicle a series of landmark events, with which I was personally involved, that relate to the development of the theory of cosmic life. The interpretation of events offered here might invite a sense of incredulity on the…
Any search for present or past life beyond Earth should consider the initial processes and related environmental controls that might have led to its start. As on Earth, such an understanding lies well beyond how simple organic molecules…
When we try to search for extraterrestrial life and intelligence, we have to follow some guidelines. The first step is to clarify what is to be meant by "Life" and "intelligence", i.e. an attempt to define these words. The word "definition"…
Despite its apparent complexity, our world seems to be governed by simple laws of physics. This volume provides a philosophical introduction to such laws. I explain how they are connected to some of the central issues in philosophy, such as…
Science of science (SciSci) is an emerging discipline wherein science is used to study the structure and evolution of science itself using large data sets. The increasing availability of digital data on scholarly outcomes offers…
After the development of a self-consistent quantum formalism nearly a century ago there began a quest for how to interpret the theoretical constructs of the formalism. In fact, the pursuit of new interpretations of quantum mechanics…
Living organisms are the most complex, interesting and significant objects regarding all substructures of the universe. Life science is regarded as a science of the 21st century and one can expect great new discoveries in the near futures.…
In this paper we derive a statistical law of Life. It governs the probability of death, or complementary of survival, of the living organisms. We have deduced such a law coupling the widely used Weibull statistics, developed for describing…
In 2007 an international conference engaged a reflection on the present conditions for sciences and scientific practice, to initiate a dialogue between science, philosophy, epistemology and sociology. Starting from many examples taken from…
The question about the appearance of time in the semiclassical limit of quantum gravity continues to be discussed in the literature. It is believed that a temporal Schrodinger equation for matter fields on the background of a classical…
It is argued that all notions associated with the origin of life should be related with the participatory anthropic principle of Wheeler and must be extended into the realm of the multiverse. Also discussed is the notion that life can only…
Over the past 50 years, the use of mathematical models, derived from physical reasoning, to describe molecular and cellular systems has evolved from an art of the few to a cornerstone of biological inquiry. George Oster stood out as a…
Light microscopy allows observing cellular features and objects with sub-micrometer resolution. As such, light microscopy has been playing a fundamental role in the life sciences for more than a hundred years. Fueled by the availability of…
I briefly consider the Kuhnian notion of "paradigm shifts" applied to the history of mathematics and argue that the succession and intergenerational continuity of mathematical thought was undeservedly neglected in the historical studies. To…
The 20th century has revealed two important limitations of scientific knowledge. On the one hand, the combination of Poincar\'e's nonlinear dynamics and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle leads to a world picture where physical reality is,…
This agile small "book" (in Italian) is an introduction to the life and work of Ettore Majorana, the brightest Italian theoretical physicist of the XX century, regarded by Enrico Fermi as the best theoretician of his time in the world. It…