What Is Life? published in 1944. At that time DNA was not yet accepted as the carrier of hereditary information, which only was the case after the Hershey–Chase experiment of 1952. One of the most successful branches of physics at this time was statistical physics, and quantum mechanics, a theory which is also very statistical in its nature. Schrödinger himself is one of the founding fathers of quantum mechanics. Max Delbrück's thinking about the physical basis of life was an important influence on Schrödinger. However, long before the publication of "What is Life?", geneticist and 1946 Nobel-prize winner H. J. Muller had in
Comparison of chemistry and physics nuclei made of protons and neutrons. On the other hand, chemistry is not concerned with other forms of matter such as quarks, mu and tau leptons and dark matter. Although fundamental laws that govern the behavior of matter apply both in chemistry and physics, the disciplines of physics and chemistry are distinct. Physics is concerned with nature from a very large scale (the entire universe) down to a very small scale (subatomic particles). All physical phenomena that are measurable follow some behavior that is in accordance with the most basic principles studied in physics. Physics is involved with the fundamental