Life's Ratchet: How Molecular Machines Extract Order from Chaos
Life's Ratchet: How Molecular Machines Extract Order from Chaos
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生命的棘轮：分子机器如何从混沌中提取秩序
DOI：
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发表时间：
2012
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
P. Hoffmann
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
P. Hoffmann
生命是一个永恒的谜。然而，科学告诉我们，生物只是无生命分子的复杂结构。如果这种观点是正确的，那么细胞和有机体的看似有目的的运动是从哪里起源的呢？在《生命的棘轮》一书中，物理学家彼得·M.霍夫曼在纳米尺度上找到了这个古老问题的答案。在生物体平静有序的外表之下，隐藏着微观的混乱，或者霍夫曼所说的分子风暴--沉浸在水分子碰撞的旋风中的特殊分子。我们的细胞充满了分子机器，就像微小的棘轮一样，将随机运动转化为有序的活动，并创造出生命的标志“目的”。微型电动机将电压转化为运动，纳米级工厂定制其他分子机器，机械机器扭曲，解开，分离和包装DNA链。细胞就像一座城市--一个深不可测的、复杂的分子工人的集合，他们一起工作，创造出比他们自己更伟大的东西。霍夫曼认为，生命是从原子的随机运动中产生的，这些原子通过我们进化机器的复杂结构过滤。我们是相互作用的纳米级机器的聚集体，比科幻小说中的任何东西都更令人惊奇。与人们几个世纪以来所相信的依靠某种神秘的“生命力”来驱动它们不同，生命的棘轮利用的是热力学第二定律和分子风暴的无序。基于霍夫曼自己的前沿研究，生命的棘轮揭示了现代纳米技术的令人难以置信的发现，讲述了原子的嘈杂世界如何产生生命本身的故事。
Life is an enduring mystery. Yet, science tells us that living beings are merely sophisticated structures of lifeless molecules. If this view is correct, where do the seemingly purposeful motions of cells and organisms originate? In Life's Ratchet, physicist Peter M. Hoffmann locates the answer to this age-old question at the nanoscale. Below the calm, ordered exterior of a living organism lies microscopic chaos, or what Hoffmann calls the molecular storm--specialized molecules immersed in a whirlwind of colliding water molecules. Our cells are filled with molecular machines, which, like tiny ratchets, transform random motion into ordered activity, and create the "purpose" that is the hallmark of life. Tiny electrical motors turn electrical voltage into motion, nanoscale factories custom-build other molecular machines, and mechanical machines twist, untwist, separate and package strands of DNA. The cell is like a city--an unfathomable, complex collection of molecular workers working together to create something greater than themselves. Life, Hoffman argues, emerges from the random motions of atoms filtered through these sophisticated structures of our evolved machinery. We are agglomerations of interacting nanoscale machines more amazing than anything in science fiction. Rather than relying on some mysterious "life force" to drive them--as people believed for centuries--life's ratchets harness instead the second law of thermodynamics and the disorder of the molecular storm. Grounded in Hoffmann's own cutting-edge research, Life's Ratchet reveals the incredible findings of modern nanotechnology to tell the story of how the noisy world of atoms gives rise to life itself.