What Is Life?

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What Hacker News says

• jekude · Oct 19, 2023 · Recommends

  The Road to Wigan Pier - Orwell Antifragile - Taleb What is Life? - Schrodinger Structure and Interpretations of Computer Programs - Abelson

  on “Ask HN: Which non-fiction books had the biggest impact on you?” ↗
• smaccoun · Apr 24, 2015 · Recommends

  …relation of mySELF, that most mysterious thing, with the rest of the world. Perhaps the best person to elucidate this fact is Erwin Schrodinger, who's books My View of the World, Nature and the Greeks, and What is Life are absolute must reads: "I am very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me is deficient. It gives a lot of factual information, puts all our experience in a magnificently…

  on “Why Physics Needs Philosophy” ↗
• aq3cn · Oct 6, 2016 · Recommends

  …book. http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Administrivia/booklist... Since you ask for my personal opinion, so I would recommend reading this book. And you know what it is freely hosted on MIT website. It is What is life by Erwin Schrödinger. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_Life%3F http://web.mit.edu/philosophy/religionandscience/mindandmatt...

  on “Ask HN: What's your favourite (reliable) news source?” ↗
• Wildgoose · Feb 5, 2019 · Recommends

  I was blown away by Erwin Schrödinger's "What is Life?". Just using pure reason and inference he not only made accurate predictions about DNA he also inspired a whole generation of physicists to switch to molecular biology and discover the fundamental building…

  on “Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?” ↗
• Lichtso · Oct 19, 2025 · Recommends

  Not yet, I agree, but who is to say they couldn't? Limiting life to cell based biology is a somewhat lousy definition by the only example we know. I prefer the generalized definition in "What is Life?" by Erwin Schrödinger which currently draws the same line (at cellular biology) but could accommodate other forms of life too.

  on “Replacement.ai” ↗
• thisisforyou · Dec 22, 2016 · Mentions

  …Numbers -Cohen, Joshua Maggot: Poems -Muldoon, Paul The Peasant in Nineteenth-Century Russia -Vucinich, Wayne S. The Mezzanine -Baker, Nicholson The Museum of Unconditional Surrender -Ugrešić, Dubravka What Is Life? with Mind and Matter and Autobiographical Sketches -Schrödinger, Erwin Dictionary of the Khazars -Pavić, Milorad Honored Guest -Williams, Joy Martyrs and Miracles -Trickey-Bapty, Carolyn Noa Noa…

  on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?” ↗
• AareyBaba · Oct 4, 2020 · Mentions

  Which evolved first cellular metabolism or replication ? Without replication you can't have evolution. Without metabolism you don't have a system to support replication. (What Is Life? by Erwin Schrödinger 1944)

  on “Algorithm discovers how six molecules could evolve into life’s building blocks” ↗
• lioeters · Jan 23, 2024 · Mentions

  > entropy is the process that drives life Depending on how you look at it, life is driven by the opposite of entropy. Schrödinger in his book, What is Life?, calls it "negative entropy" or even "free energy". > In the 1944 book What is Life?, Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who in 1933 had won the Nobel Prize in Physics, theorized that life – contrary…

  on “Is the emergence of life an expected phase transition in the evolving universe?” ↗
• __MatrixMan__ · Apr 14, 2025 · Mentions

  I have lost the book, but I think I read this in "What is Life? And Other Scientific Essays" by Erwin Schrödinger. If I recall, it was one of the "Other Scientific Essays."

  on “Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex” ↗
• fractallyte · Mar 29, 2024 · Mentions

  Erwin Schrödinger's famous book, What Is Life? begins with a simple question: "Why are the atoms so small?" It subsequently turns this question around: "Why must our bodies be so large compared with the atom?" The point is that a brain (a 'thinking'…

  on “Is the Sun Conscious? (2021) [pdf]” ↗