Title Details

This book is a guide to what is known about the essential physics, chemistry and biology of life. No scientific knowledge is needed to understand this account of how our microworld works. "Vital Principles" explains what living things are made of and how they work, beginning at the level of atoms and working up through genes and proteins to the cells, tissues and organs of multicellular life. Andrew Scott demonstrates that living things are just intricate chemical machines composed and and sustained by chemicals interacting according to the fundamental laws of physics. The continual interplay of chemicals as they react to one another's prescence is all we can find within us. There is no mysterious essential force as was once thought. The energy needed for this "dance of life" comes directly from the sun. The book should be of interest to general readers, as well as scientists at all levels.