QUANTUM ASPECTS OF LIFE

The significant thing about this book is 'not that it was done well, but that it was done at all'. There is a very limited output of material on the possibility of quantum features being relevant to biological matter or consciousness, so this book plugs a gap.Useful chapter include those by Mershin/Nanopoulos on the involvement of the internal structure of cells in memory, by Paul Davies and also by Al-Khalili/McFadden on the origins of life on Earth and those by Seth Lloyd and also Appoorva Patel on computation and information processing as it relates to life forms. Finally, Stuart Hameroff has contributed an interesting chapter on a possible mechanism for the support of quantum coherence in living cells.The main criticism is that while the book appears to present itself as a relatively popular science book, about half the chapters are likely to be too difficult for lay readers, and might belong better in a peer-reviewed journal. Two further chapters reproducing plenary conference debates gave the impression of speakers talking past one another rather than engaging with the core issues.

I bought this book a while ago after reading "What is life?" by Schroedinger.I see this book being closer to a loose collection of good articles under a quantum biology spectrum rather than a presentation of "the hotly debated question of whether quantum mechanics plays a non-trivial role in biology". I found the "Debate" section more rewarding than most of the articles presented.In general I believe that if one is in position of understanding this series of articles, he is already bought into that QM plays a significant role in Biology and in that sense the book misses its point. I don't have a background in Physics or Biophysics (my background is in CS) and I really struggled at some points; I wouldn't recommended to anyone without enough time to invest and/or a decent understanding of Physics (eg. a standard Biology undergrad would probably find the concepts of Quantum Coherence and Decoherence a bit out there.).Finally I think this book could easily be priced around £20. While I find it quality-wise fine, it has a single (easily omittable) page with colour and it is not a hardback so I don't see how it could amass to a printing cost that would lead to a roughly £35 price-tag. Some of the articles are essays or articles that the authors have published in other places (eg. the "A Semi-quantum Version of the Game of Life" is published by the authors in the Annals of the International Society of Dynamic Games Volume 7, 2005, pp 667-679.) so clearly people could reuse the material they presented and it was not written "exclusively" for this book (that's not a bad thing in itself at all, it does not justify the cost though).