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Life's Ratchet: How Molecular Machines Extract Order from Chaos
Life's Ratchet How Molecular Machines Extract Order from Chaos Author:Peter M. Hoffmann How does the microscopic cloud of atomic chaos give rise to the orderly world of the molecular machine — and to life itself? The cells in our bodies consist of molecules, made up of the same carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen atoms found in air and rocks. But molecules, such as water and sugar, are not alive. So how do our cell... more »s — assemblies of otherwise "dead" molecules — come to life, and together constitute a living being?
In Life's Ratchet, physicist Peter M. Hoffmann locates the answer to these age-old questions at the nanoscale. The complex molecules of our cells can rightfully be called "molecular machines", or "nanobots"; these machines, unlike any other, work autonomously to create order out of chaos. Tiny electrical motors turn electrical voltage into motion, tiny factories custom-build other molecular machines, and mechanical machines twist, untwist, separate, and package strands of DNA. The cell is like a city — an unfathomable, complex collection of molecular worker bees working together to create something greater than themselves. Life emerges from the random motions of atoms filtered through the sophisticated structures of this evolved machinery.
Yet life happens on many levels. Giant assemblies of interacting nanoscale machines — machines more amazing than can be found in any science fiction novel — may govern the structure of who we are, but they do not determine who we are. While based on machines, we are not machines ourselves. Though the bulk of his book focuses on the nature of life-building nanomachinery, Hoffmann concludes with hints that both chance and necessity are essential to an explanation of all within the universe.
Part history, part cutting-edge science, part philosophy, Life's Ratchet takes us from ancient Greece to the laboratories of modern nanotechnology to tell the story of our quest for the machinery of life.« less