Quantum mechanics governs the microscopic world. It is beautiful and powerful in isolated systems, but how far can quantum effects survive in the wet environment of bio-molecules and fundamental bio-relevant processes.
Quantum mechanics and life, From a general point of view and considering the anthropic principal the onset of this universe which permits life to exist was strongly governed by quantum fluctuations in this respect life is a consequence of them. now the biological systems are mesoscopic : in the interface between micro and macro could quantum fluctuation survive until there? it is an open question how to draw a line between classical and quantum world and it seems that if we can keep coherence of quantum states unperturbed we can push this boundary arbitrary far into the classical domain. I think if we can achieve this coherence for a cell say we will observe the quantum effects.
Since you seem pretty familiar with open systems and such, the basic items, as far as I know, are:
- intuitively, quantum effects should be relevant only on short time- and length scales (unless you call the ab-initio calculation of some rates quantum effects)
- Some experimentalists claim to have seen (electronic) coherence over considerable time scales (100s of fs), but this is disputed by theoreticians
- There seems to be a fashion of "Quantum biology" with theoreticians applying their usual spin-boson etc. models to proteins and the like. So far, I have not seen any huge breakthroughs.
If you have specific questions, I may have some references lying around somewhere, but that is about my knowledge of the field.
Yes. Life depends on conversion of photons to useable energy quanta
Dear Joerg:
Trust you are well. It is formidable to observe how complex multi-cellular organisms are able to demonstrate super-synchronised physiological actions, reactions and through-puts. How can super-synchronicity exist across an entire organism without quantum entanglement type phenomena? The key question then is that if quantum effects are observable at the molecular or cellular level then these are no longer micro phenomena but macro phenomena. This means that quantum mechanics based entanglement, coherence and superposition take place in the classical world beautifully and visibly so and not just at the micro- and nano- scale.
Best wishes
DKM
PS Would be good to see your questions based participation at the iQ:Ei Club at iQEi.QiLabs.net
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