All basic condensed matter physics phenomena and notions mirror in biology – A hypothesis, two examples and a novel prediction

Pramana

G Baskaran¹ 

[1] Institute of Mathematical Sciences, C.I.T. Campus, Chennai 600 113, India$$

关键词: Condensed matter physics;    magnetic crystals in biology;    excitons and photosynthesis.;   

DOI  :  

学科分类：物理（综合）

来源: Indian Academy of Sciences

【 摘 要 】

A few billion years of evolutionary time and the complex process of ‘selection’ has given biology an opportunity to explore a variety of condensed matter phenomena and situations, some of which have been discovered by humans in the laboratory, that too only in extreme non-biological conditions such as low temperatures, high purity, high pressure etc., in the last centuries. Biology, at some level, is a complex and self-regulated condensed matter system compared to the ‘inanimate’ condensed matter systems such as liquid 4He, liquid water or a piece of graphite. In this article I propose a hypothesis that ‘all basic condensed matter physics phenomena and notions (already known and ones yet to be discovered) mirror in biology’. I explain this hypothesis by considering the idea of ‘Bose condensation’ or ‘momentum space order’ and discuss two known example of quantum magnetism encountered in biology. I also provide some new and rather speculative possibility, from light harvesting in biological photosynthesis, of mesoscopic exciton condensation related phenomena at room temperature.

【 授权许可】

Unknown