Speech(es) Review: 70 years before and after

In February 1943, Erwin Schrodinger, the Nobel Laureate (he of the Schrodinger's Cat fame) gave a lecture titled, "What is Life?"

He had moved to Dublin because of WWII to head up the Dublin School of Advanced studies.  This is probably one of the most celebrated speeches in science.  A physicist, who delivered a series of 3 lectures that revolutionized biology!

In the words of Neville Symonds, his contemporary, the insights from this speech (that was published as a book the next year) helped transform biology from a “sissy field” into coming of age.

In book form, the speeches run just 100 pages.  I both read and listened to them on audible.  It was gripping indeed, made doubly so now that we know how everything he said has turned out many decades later.

Schrodinger covers three main aspects in his series of three speeches.  First, that in the physical universe all matter obey statistical laws.  He establishes sharing three examples in clear understandable layman's terms:  1. Paramagnetism, 2. Brownian motion and 3. Diffusion.

Second, he observes that the material inside the cells, such as the genes DO NOT obey these statistical laws.  He marvels at how a relatively tiny number of molecules are able to create "order from order" in his words.

Finally, he proposes the term "code-script" to sharply hypothesize that what is really happening is that there is information in the form of a code-script inherent in these cells, that is being passed on between the cells and between generations.

His speech stops short of giving an explanation for it, given the advances in biology at that time.

Of course, there were a dizzying array of physics and biology terms in the speech that I am giving short shrift here for the purposes of this post (they include - gene, allelle, protein, amino acid, statistical thermodynamics, entropy, covalent bonds, quantum jumps, nature of solids, amorphous solids, difference between organic and inorganic matter and so on).

The genius of Schrodinger was that he put all these terms together together in an easy to understand speech before some of these concepts were even framed and understood by scientists and engineers.

Watson & Crick

Indeed, famously, Watson & Crick were inspired by the speech to turn to biology and as we all know identified the double helix structure of the DNA, for which they shared their own Nobel Prize.

70 years after Schrodinger's Dublin speech, Craig Venter was invited to deliver a speech with the same exact title, What is Life?

Craig Venter is known for leading the first draft sequence of the human genome and assembled the first team to create a synthetic chromosome.

This speech is available on YouTube.  This is a truly staggering speech, but one needs to get past the  dry style of delivery.  Where Schrodinger combines Physics and Biology, Venter combines Digital Computing and Biology.

The key insight from Venter's speech is that DNA is the software of life and proteins are the hardware of life.  His quote towards the end of his speech, "all cellular life on planet earth is DNA software driven biological machines with protein robots coded by DNA that carry out precise tasks.”

Then Craig looked 70 years into the future to hypothesize what might the world be in 2082.

Venter (blue shirt) at the speech

In the future, imagine a little box that makes vaccines upon receiving a digital code (analogy to 3D printing).  70 years from now he can see a world where we are manufacturing everything from food, fuel and medicines through digital biological machines.  Imagine colonizing moon or mars and just sending codes digitally to these colonies to produce food and medicines.  He calls this digitizing life.

James Watson attended Craig Venter's speech in 2012 in Dublin and toasted him at the end.  It was a very touching moment!

I had my own personal near-experience with Craig Venter.  I was at Aspen for the Aspen Ideas festival in 2018.  I was there to speak at a round-table on the topic of human longevity.  He was on the agenda at the conference too.  I ran to a local print shop and printed out his 2012 speech at Trinity college.  Then I attended his lecture to see if I could get him to autograph it and send it as a gift to my Dad.  But the chance did not present itself as he was whisked in and out of the hall.  I have also heard him speak at the Stanford Center on Longevity for their 10th anniversary.

I was deeply entertained and moved this week by these two speeches by Schrodinger and Venter, both titled, "What is Life?"  It was made much more enjoyable by three people who gave me company along the way, both explaining terms and sharing in the excitement - my Dad who is a Laser and Quantum Physicist and an expert in Crystallography, my friend and classmate with an undergraduate degree Mechanical Engineering and a graduate degree in Computer Science, thus with a grasp of thermodynamics and digital technologies and a third friend with a degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering.  My thanks to all three!

Schrodinger utilizing his deep expertise in physics, delivered a series of three speeches in 1943 at Trinity College in Dublin, and ended up revolutionizing biology.  A remarkable story indeed!



Additional Links:

1. News story about the 75th anniversary of Schroedinger's Speech:
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/science/dublin-institute-marks-75th-anniversary-of-schr%C3%B6dinger-lecture-1.3379859

2.  Commentary on Schroedinger's Speech by Neville Symonds, his contemporary
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2829084?read-now=1&refreqid=excelsior%3A013c594a726a5fc4efc524224826314c&seq=1