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Relationships between quantum physics and biology

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Abstract

The known facts of quantum physics and biology strongly suggest the following hypotheses: atoms and the fundamental particles have a rudimentary degree of consciousness, volition, or self-activity; the basic features of quantum mechanics are a result of this fact; the quantum mechanical wave properties of matter are actually the conscious properties of matter; and living organisms are a direct result of these properties of matter. These hypotheses are tested by using them to make detailed predictions of new facts, and then by showing that the predictions can be verified. The hypotheses are used to predict successfully that the quantum wave properties of matter are strongly predominant in proteins, to explain the presence and relative abundance of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur in proteins, and to explain diffraction phenomena, the behavior of helium II, the exclusion principle, and causality and determinism in modern science, thus closely relating physics and biology.

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This article is an outgrowth of the author's thesis work in the Graduate School (Physics Department) of the University of Missouri—Rolla.

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Cochran, A.A. Relationships between quantum physics and biology. Found Phys 1, 235–250 (1971). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00708610

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00708610

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