Schrödinger's book begins with a chapter on "The Classical Physicist's Approach to the Subject." Schrödinger asks how events in space and time taking place in a living organism can be accounted for by physics and chemistry:
"Enough is known about the material structure of life to tell exactly why present-day physics cannot account for life. That difference lies in the statistical point of view. It is well-nigh unthinkable that the laws and regulations thus discovered (i.e. by physics) should apply immediately to the behavior of systems which do not exhibit the structure on which these laws and regularities are based."
Schrödinger jumps to that conclusion after reading that genes are specific molecules of which each cell generally contains no more than two copies. He had entered Vienna University in 1906, the year that Boltzmann died and had been taught physics by Boltzmann's pupils. He remained deeply influenced by Boltzmann's thoughts ...
