How Does Biology Connect to Theoretical Physics and Time Travel?

[Mk]

Well, I'm sitting here in biology, teacher's saying you can apply it anywhere, its connected to anything. We had to write an essay about how it applies to the field we were interested in. Long story short: I give up and ask him "how's biology related to theoretical physics? Or quantum physics?" He was then out of ideas. He came back and said something like: "Is it possible to bring a life form through time?, or through diffrent dimensions?

Well, yeah, I wrote about that and how would it affect one if they did one of those things.

Any ideas from you thousands of minds?

 

[Nenad]

You could write about black holes and biological entities(the freaky effects). You could also talk about DNA and how elmentary Physics takes part in the structure of it. Or you could talk about the effect of putting a human in a large microwave.

 

[VantagePoint72]

Perhaps draw some sort of analogy between DNA and superstrings. Are you in year-round schooling or something?

 

[Nereid]

"A Short History of Attempts to Attribute Consciousness to Quantum Physics (and Why the Attempts Have Been Miserable Failures)"

or

"The Role of Stimulants in the Discovery of Quantum Mechanics (and Why the Modern World Really Does Run on Coffee and Alcohol)"

 

[Moonbear]

It would probably be more accurate to say that quantum mechanics can be applied to biology rather than biology applied to quantum mechanics, but of course there are plenty of things in biology that would rely on quantum mechanical principles.

For a start, check out this site that gives some examples:
http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/quantum_biology/

Too bad your teacher gave you a rather flippant, unthoughtful answer rather than taking the initiative to find some more interesting answers for you. I did a google search of biology and quantum mechanics and a number of interesting links popped up (including the one I listed above).

It is my understanding that quantum mechanical principles underlie the function of newer generations of diagnostic equipment in medicine (such as MRI). It sounds like a fascinating place to integrate biology and physics.

 

[Gokul43201]

True, but the question is about the role of Biology in QM, and not vice versa. This question really has very limited answers. Nereid's second is one possibility. Another may be a discussion of the role of the observer -observers being biological subjects - and the observer created reality.

Otherwise, there's no place that Biology helps, in understanding QM.

 

[Moonbear]

Even with the examples the teacher gave, it was about QM impacting biology and not the other way around, so it seemed those sorts of answers would be acceptable too. I hope the teacher's intent with this exercise was primarily to avoid the inevitable question, "But how will I use this in the 'real' world?" There are interactions between the two fields, but Gokul is right in pointing out that there really aren't any examples where biology would help understand QM short of providing examples of how QM is applied. It's really that QM may help understand biology. This shouldn't be dismissed, but may not help you get your essay written. It might be easier to pretend you are interested in a different field for the sake of the essay :-)