Why would we want to read a scientific book from 1943? Because of who wrote it - Erwin Schrödinger was a part of the generation of physicists that thrust the world into the Quantum Age. Included in that constellation of minds were Einstein, Bohr, Sommerfeld, Fermi, Heisenberg, Pauli and Geiger.

Schrödinger's equation, which calculates wave functions within a system, remains one of the foundations of quantum mechanics. He is best known, however, for the thought experiment, "Schrödinger's Cat."

Schrödinger was the first to hypothesis that molecules could store information. Crick and Watson credited "What is Life?" for helping them toward the discovery of DNA.

Topics include the hereditary mechanism, mutations, the interrelation of order, disorder and entropy, and an epilogue on determinism vs. free will.