Is Mutation related to quantum jump?

[tze liu]

is Mutation /evolution as a result of quantum jump?
and is it possible that the collapse of the quantum state alters the nucleotide sequence of the genome of some creatures.

thank you ! <mentor moved the thread from Biology to Quantum Physics>

 

[jim mcnamara]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10400270 says that mutations can occur through changes in quantum state. I am not competent to evaluate this paper.
So, it is being moved to physics forum.

My limited take on it: I have no good way to know the rate of preserved mutations so caused. I think it would simply damage the DNA very likely causing apoptosis of the cell.

@mfb @vanhees71 Could you please comment on this paper? It seems a bit odd to me.

 

[mfb]

The paper seems odd to me as well.

For individual molecules, "quantum jump" is not a very useful concept. Once you treat it as quantum mechanical system there is no jump any more. Does quantum mechanics play a role? Yes of course, without quantum mechanics there wouldn't be molecules at all. Does that mean we should assign everything that happens to quantum mechanics? I'm not sure how useful that approach is. A lot of DNA damage has its origin in very classical things - atoms shooting through the DNA at high speed and similar.

 

[rootone]

It is much more likely that errors in DNA copying arise because of random interferance.
This could be due to radioactivity or toxic chemicals or other things.
I don't think quantum events can be very important, but they may play a part.

 

[atyy]

In the formalism of continuous measurement, both mutations and non-mutations can be thought of as arising from quantum jumps. This is because mutations and non-mutations are events in the classical world, which can be thought of as arising from quantum jumps. It is not correct to think that mutations arise from quantum jumps, and that non-mutations do not arise from quantum jumps.

https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0211036
Continuous Quantum Measurement and the Quantum to Classical Transition
Tanmoy Bhattacharya, Salman Habib, Kurt Jacobs