Creating a Physical Biology

Phillip R. Sloan

ISBN 10: 0226767833 / ISBN 13: 9780226767833

Published by The University of Chicago Press, 2011

About this Item

In 1935 geneticist Nikolai Timofeeff-Ressovsky, radiation physicist Karl G Zimmer, and quantum physicist Max Delbruck published "On the Nature of Gene Mutation and Gene Structure", known subsequently as the "Three-Man Paper". This title presents a translation of the "Three Man Paper". Editor(s): Sloan, Phillip R.; Fogel, Brandon. Num Pages: 320 pages, 9 halftones, 11 line drawings, 14 tables. BIC Classification: PDX; PSD. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 154 x 227 x 18. Weight in Grams: 466. . 2011. Paperback. . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland.

Seller Inventory # V9780226767833

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Creating a Physical Biology
• Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
• Publication Date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226767833
• ISBN 13: 9780226767833
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

In 1935 geneticist Nikolai Timoféeff-Ressovsky, radiation physicist Karl G. Zimmer, and quantum physicist Max Delbrück published “On the Nature of Gene Mutation and Gene Structure,” known subsequently as the “Three-Man Paper.” This seminal paper advanced work on the physical exploration of the structure of the gene through radiation physics and suggested ways in which physics could reveal definite information about gene structure, mutation, and action. Representing a new level of collaboration between physics and biology, it played an important role in the birth of the new field of molecular biology. The paper’s results were popularized for a wide audience in the What is Life? lectures of physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1944.

 

Despite its historical impact on the biological sciences, the paper has remained largely inaccessible because it was only published in a short-lived German periodical. Creating a Physical Biology makes the Three Man Paper available in English for the first time. Brandon Fogel’s translation is accompanied by an introductory essay by Fogel and Phillip Sloan and a set of essays by leading historians and philosophers of biology that explore the context, contents, and subsequent influence of the paper, as well as its importance for the wider philosophical analysis of biological reductionism.

About the Authors

Phillip R. Sloan is professor emeritus in the Program of Liberal Studies and the Program in History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Notre Dame.

Brandon Fogel is the Collegiate Assistant Professor in the Division of Humanities at the University of Chicago.