The spur to watson & crick. First edition, first impression of the book that introduced an entire generation of biologists to molecular physics and inspired Watson and Crick to study the structure of DNA.

Author Erwin Schrödinger (1887-1961) was a leading physicist who made important contributions to quantum theory, including his paradoxical thought experiment known as 'Schrödinger's cat'. But he was also a polymath whose interests extended to other branches of science as well as to history and philosophy. This text, his major contribution to biology, was based on a series of lectures given at Trinity College, Dublin in 1943. In it he discusses how molecular theories should be applied to the study of living things, particularly in the case of the genetic material, which was still poorly understood. Most importantly, he hypothesises about how the genetic molecule would be structured and interact at the most fundamental level.

'Schrödinger's book had an enormous influence, not only upon physicists who were persuaded that their methods might solve the problems of biology, but also among biologists who were encouraged to think more rigourously in terms of mathematically formulated and testable models. It was translated into seven languages and the total sales are estimated as over 100,000 copies'... What is Life? had a determining influence on the career of James Watson. He read the book in the spring of 1946, while he was an undergraduate at Chicago and undecided what to do and where to go for graduate work. "From the moment I read Schrödinger's What is Life? I became polarized towards finding out the secret of the gene"... Francis Crick thought the book was "peculiarly influential" and "attracted people who might otherwise have not entered biology at all"... There is no other instance in the history of science in which such a short semipopular book catalyzed the future development of a great field of research' (Moore, Schrödinger: Life and Thought, pp. 403-404).

First edition; 8vo; 2 double-sided plates, occasional light spotting, a few dark spots at the top edge of the first plate; original green cloth, titles to spine gilt, a very good copy in the jacket that is rubbed and dulled with browned spine panel and wear at the extremities; 91pp.