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
Physics (American Physical Society magazine) the commentaries are based. Physics (American Physical Society magazine) Physics is an open access online publication containing commentaries on the best of the peer-reviewed research published in the journals of the American Physical Society. The editor-in-chief of "Physics" is Jessica Thomas. It highlights papers in "Physical Review Letters" and the "Physical Review" family of journals. The magazine was established in 2008. "Physics" contains three types of commentaries on research papers: journalistic articles ("Focus"), in depth pieces written by active researchers ("Viewpoints"), and short summaries of a research paper ("Synopsis") written by editorial staff. Readers get free access to the underlying