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Quantum Explorers: Bohr, Jordan, and Delbrück Venturing into Biology

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Abstract

This paper disentangles selected intertwined aspects of two great scientific developments: quantum mechanics and molecular biology. We look at the contributions of three physicists who in the 1930s were protagonists of the quantum revolution and explorers of the field of biology: Niels Bohr, Pascual Jordan, and Max Delbrück. Their common platform was the defense of the Copenhagen interpretation in physics and the adoption of the principle of complementarity as a way of looking at biology. Bohr addressed the problem of how far the results reached in physics might influence our views about life. Jordan and Delbrück were followers of Bohr’s ideas in the context of quantum mechanics and also of his tendency to expand the implications of the Copenhagen interpretation to biology. We propose that Bohr’s perspective on biology was related to his epistemological views, as Jordan’s was to his political positions. Delbrück’s propensity to migrate was related to his transformation into a key figure in the history of twentieth-century molecular biology.

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Notes

  1. We use terms such as “Copenhagen interpretation” and “principle of complementarity” interchangeably, which mirrors current scientific usage when referencing this most influential interpretation of quantum mechanics. Scholarly works, however, have shown that the term “Copenhagen interpretation” appeared only in the 1950s in the context of the controversy over the interpretation of this physical theory. See Olival Freire Junior, “Science and Exile: David Bohm, the Cold War, and a New Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics,” Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 36 (2005), 1–34; Don A. Howard, “Quantum Mechanics in Context: Pascual Jordan’s 1936 Anschauliche Quantentheorie,” in Massimiliano Badino and Jaume Navarro, eds., Research and Pedagogy: A History of Quantum Physics through Its Textbooks (Berlin: Edition Open Access, 2013), 265–283; Kristian Camilleri, “Constructing the Myth of the Copenhagen Interpretation,” Perspectives on Science 17 (2009), 30–32.

References

  1. See Evelyn F. Keller, Making Sense of Life: Explaining Biological Development with Models, Metaphors, and Machines (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002); Keller, “The Century beyond the Gene,” Journal of Biosciences 30 (2005), 3–10; Norton M. Wise, Growing Explanations: Historical Perspectives on Recent Science (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004); Wise, “Science as History,” in Kostas Gavroglu and Jürgen Renn, eds., Positioning the History of Science, Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science (Dordrecht: Springer, 2007), 177–183.

  2. Olival Freire Jr., “Quantum Dissidents: Research on the Foundations of Quantum Theory circa 1970,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 40 (2009), 280–289.

  3. See Donald Fleming, “Émigré Physicists and the Biological Revolution,” in Donald Fleming and Bernard Bailyn, eds., The Intellectual Migration (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968), 152–189; Robert Olby, The Path to the Double Helix (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1974); Lily E. Kay, Who Wrote the Book of Life? A History of the Genetic Code (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000).

  4. See John A. Fuerst, “The Role of Reductionism in the Development of Molecular Biology: Peripheral or Central?,” Social Studies of Science 12 (1982), 241–278.

  5. See Soraya de Chadarevian, Designs for Life: Molecular Biology after World War II (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

  6. John L. Heilbron, “The Earliest Missionaries of the Copenhagen Spirit,” Revue d’Histoire des Sciences 38 (1985), 195–230.

  7. Evelyn F. Keller, “Physics and the Emergence of Molecular Biology: A History of Cognitive and Political Synergy, Journal of the History of Biology,” Journal of the History of Biology 23 (1990), 389–490, on 389.

  8. Wilson C. K. Poon, “Interdisciplinary Reflections: The Case of Physics and Biology,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 42 (2011), 115–118.

  9. See Pnina Abir-Am, “Themes, Genres and Orders of Legitimation in the Consolidation of New Scientific Disciplines: Deconstructing the Historiography of Molecular Biology,” History of Science 23 (1985), 73–117; Robert T. Blackburn, Interrelations: The Biological and Physical Sciences (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966); John Cairns, Gunther S. Stent, and James D. Watson, Phage and the Origins of Molecular Biology (Cold Spring Harbor: CSHL Press, 2007); Krishna R. Dronamraju, “Erwin Schrödinger and the Origins of Molecular Biology,” Genetics 153 (1999), 1071–1076; Fleming, “Émigré Physicists” (ref. 3); Fuerst, “The Role of Reductionism” (ref. 4); Francois Jacob, The Logic of Life (New York: Vintage Press, 1973); Lily E. Kay, Molecular Vision of Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993); Lily E. Kay, Book of Life (ref. 3); Evelyn F. Keller, Refiguring Life: Metaphors of Twentieth-Century Biology (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995); Michael Morange, A History of Molecular Biology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Olby, Double Helix (ref. 3).

  10. Concerning how scientists relate to the contexts in which they are embedded, our view is in accordance with Wise’s alternative model, which emphasizes resources and participation instead of influences and capitalization. See Norton M. Wise, “Forman Reformed, Again,” in Cathryn Carson, Alexei Kojevnikov, and Helmuth Trischler, eds., Weimar Culture and Quantum Mechanics: Selected Papers by Paul Forman and Contemporary Perspectives on the Forman Thesis (London: Imperial College Press & World Scientific, 2011), 415–431.

  11. From Bacon’s Novum Organum (1620), cited in Edwin A. Burtt, ed. The English Philosophers from Bacon to Mill (New York: Random House, 1939), 24–123, on 36.

  12. The history of the Copenhagen interpretation is plentifully supplied with narratives. See Mara Beller, Quantum Dialogue: The Making of a Revolution (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1999); Don Howard, “Who Invented the ‘Copenhagen Interpretation’? A Study in Mythology,” Philosophy of Science 71 (2004), 669–682; Kristian Camilleri, “Constructing the Myth of the Copenhagen Interpretation,” Perspectives on Science 17 (2009), 30–32.

  13. Niels Bohr, “Light and Life,” Nature 133 (1933), 457–459, on 457.

  14. Ibid., 458.

  15. Ibid., 457.

  16. Ibid., 458.

  17. Ibid.

  18. Max Delbrück, interview by Carolyn Harding, Oral History Project, California Institute of Technology Archives Oral Histories, 1979.

  19. See also, Bohr, “Light and Life” (ref. 13), Niels Bohr, “Licht und Leben-noch einmal,” Naturwissenschaften 50 (1963) 725–727, and Gunther S. Stent, “Light and Life: Niels Bohr’s Legacy to Contemporary Biology,” Genome 31 (1989), 11–15.

  20. Finn Aaserud, Redirecting Science: Niels Bohr, Philanthropy and the Rise of Nuclear Physics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

  21. See David Favrholdt, Niels Bohr Collected Works Volume 10, Complementarity beyond Physics (1928–1962) (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1999); Nils Roll-Hansen, “The Application of Complementarity to Biology: From Niels Bohr to Max Delbrück,” Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 30 (2000), 417–442.

  22. See Bartel L. van der Waerden, Sources of Quantum Mechanics (New York: Dover, 1967), 42.

  23. Pascual Jordan, Anschauliche Quantentheorie: Eine Einführung in die moderne Auffassung der Quantenerscheinungen (Berlin: Julius Springer, 1936).

  24. Don A. Howard, “Quantum Mechanics in Context: Pascual Jordan’s 1936 Anschauliche Quantentheorie,” in Massimiliano Badino and Jaume Navarro, eds., Research and Pedagogy: A History of Quantum Physics through its Textbooks (Berlin: Edition Open Access, 2013), 265–283.

  25. See Richard E. Beyler, “From Positivism to Organism: Pascual Jordan’s Interpretations of Modern Physics in Cultural Context.” PhD diss., Harvard University, 1994; Norton M. Wise, “Pascual Jordan: Quantum Mechanics, Psychology, National Socialism,” in Monika Renneberg and Mark Walker, eds., Science, Technology, and National Socialism (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 224–254; Dieter Hoffmann, “Pascual Jordan im Dritten Reich: Schlaglichter,” Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Preprint 248, 2003.

  26. Heilbron, “The Earliest Missionaries” (ref. 6).

  27. Richard E. Beyler, “Targeting the Organism: The Scientific and Cultural Context of Pascual Jordan’s Quantum Biology, 1932–1947,” Isis 87 (1996), 248–273.

  28. Pascual Jordan, “Quantenmechanische Bemerkungen zur Biologie und Psychologie,” Erkenntnis 4 (1934), 215-252.

  29. Beyler, “Targeting the Organism” (ref. 27).

  30. Dieter Hoffmann and Mark Walker, eds., The German Physical Society in the Third Reich. Physicists between Autonomy and Accommodation, (Berlin: Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, 2012).

  31. Moritz Schlick, “Ergänzende Bemerkungen über Jordan Versuch einer Quantentheoretischen Deutung der Lebenserscheinungen,” Erkenntnis 5 (1935), 181–183; Beyler, “From Positivism” (ref. 25).

  32. Heilbron, “The Earliest Missionaries” (ref. 6), Beyler, “Targeting the Organism” (ref. 26).

  33. Howard, “Quantum Mechanics in Context” (ref. 24).

  34. Pascual Jordan, “Die Quantenmechanik und die Grundprobleme der Biologie und Psychologie,” Naturwissenschaften 20 (1932), 815–821; see also Jordan, “Quantenmechanische Bemerkunge” (ref. 28).

  35. Heilbron, “The Earliest Missionaries” (ref. 6).

  36. Pascual Jordan, “Die Verstärkertheorie der Organismen in ihrem gegenwärtigen Stand,” Naturwissenschaften 26 (1938), 537–545.

  37. Richard E. Beyler, “Exporting the Quantum Revolution: Pascual Jordan’s Biophysical Initiatives,” in Dieter Hoffmann, Jürgen Ehlers, and Jürgen Renn, eds., Pascual Jordan 1902–1980 (Berlin: Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Preprint 329, 2007), 69–81.

  38. See Howard, “Quantum Mechanics in Context” (ref. 24); Beyler, “Targeting the Organism” (ref. 27); Hoffmann, “Pascual Jordan” (ref. 25).

  39. Beyler, “Targeting the Organism” (ref. 27); Wise, “Pascual Jordan” (ref. 25).

  40. Beyler, “Targeting the Organism” (ref. 27).

  41. As shown by Nikolay Timofeev-Ressovsky, Karl G. Zimmer, and Max Delbrück, “Über die Natur der Genmutation und der Genstruktur,” Nachrichten von der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen: Mathematische-Physikalische Klasse, Fachgruppe VI,” Biologie 13 (1935) 189–245, see also Philip R. Sloan and Brandon Fogel, Creating a Physical Biology: The Three-Man Paper and Early Molecular Biology (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2011).

  42. For a present-day study of physicists who, like Delbrück, actually changed fields, see Leyla M. Joaquim, “Disciplinary Encounters—Where Physics Meets Biology: Some Historical and Contemporary Perspectives.” PhD diss., Universidade Federal da Bahia, 2014.

  43. Max Delbrück, interview (ref. 18).

  44. Gino Segrè, Ordinary Geniuses: Max Delbrück, George Gamow, and the Origins of Genomics and Big Bang Cosmology (New York: Viking-Penguin, 2011).

  45. See Max Delbrück, “A Physicist Looks at Biology,” Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences 38 (1949), 173–190; Max Delbrück, “Light and Life III,” Carlsberg Research Communications 41 (1976), 299–309; Lily E. Kay, “The Secret of Life: Niels Bohr’s Influence on the Biology Program of Delbrück,” Rivista di Storia della Scienza 2 (1985), 207–246; Daniel J. McKaughan, “The Influence of Niels Bohr on Max Delbrück: Revisiting the Hopes Inspired by ‘Light and Life,’” Isis 96 (2005), 507–529; Andrew T. Domondon, “Bringing Physics to Bear on the Phenomenon of Life: The Divergent Positions of Bohr, Delbrück, and Schrödinger,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 37 (2006), 433–458.

  46. Roll-Hansen, “The Application of Complementarity” (ref. 21).

  47. Max Delbrück, interview (ref. 18), 94.

  48. For further details on Delbrück’s scientific views, trajectory, and contributions, see Sloan and Fogel, “Creating a Physical Biology” (ref. 41) and Lily E. Kay, “Conceptual and Analytical Tools: The Biology of Physicist Max Delbrück,” Journal of History of Biology 18 (1985), 207–246.

  49. Delbrück’s letter to Bohr from 1962, reproduced in Favrholdt, “Niels Bohr Collected” (ref. 21), 488.

  50. Marco Bischof, “Introduction to Integrative Biophysics,” in Fritz-Albert Popp and Lev Beloussov, eds., Integrative Biophysics: Biophotonics (New York: Springer, 2003).

  51. See Stephen H. Kellert, Helen E. Longino, and C. Kenneth Waters, “Introduction: The Pluralist Stance,” in Stephen H. Kellert, Helen E. Longino, and C. Kenneth Waters, eds., Scientific Pluralism, Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 19 (Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press, 2006) vii–xxix.

  52. The term is used in the sense of Galison’s metaphor of trading zone. See Peter Galison, Image and Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1997).

  53. For an initial approach to these issues see Leyla M. Joaquim, “Disciplinary Encounters” (ref. 42).

  54. See Margit E. Oswald and Stefan Grosjean, “Confirmation Bias,” in Rüdiger F. Pohl, ed., Cognitive Illusions: A Handbook on Fallacies and Biases in Thinking, Judgment and Memory (Hove: Psychology Press, 2004), 79–96.

  55. Henry David Thoreau, Walden; or, Life in the Woods (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004).

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG) and the American Institute of Physics (AIP) for financial and structural support and also the Brazilian agency CAPES (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel) for funding the entire project. We are also thankful to the editors for the careful review and editing of this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Física, Universidade Federal da Bahia, Ondina, Salvador, BA, 40210340, Brazil

    Leyla Joaquim & Olival Freire Jr.

  2. Instituto de Biologia, Universidade Federal da Bahia, Ondina, Salvador, BA, 40210340, Brazil

    Charbel N. El-Hani

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  1. Leyla Joaquim
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Correspondence to Leyla Joaquim.

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Leyla Joaquim holds a PhD in history, philosophy, and science teaching and is a researcher at the Federal University of Bahia. This paper is derived from her PhD dissertation. Olival Freire, Jr. is a professor of physics and history of science at the Institute of Physics, Federal University of Bahia, Brazil. Charbel N. El-Hani is a professor at the Institute of Biology, Federal University of Bahia, Brazil, where he coordinates the History, Philosophy, and Biology Teaching Lab. He is book review editor of Science & Education.

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Joaquim, L., Freire, O. & El-Hani, C.N. Quantum Explorers: Bohr, Jordan, and Delbrück Venturing into Biology. Phys. Perspect. 17, 236–250 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-015-0167-7

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