Jim Al-Khalili: The Fundamentals of Quantum Biology | Robinson's Podcast #185

Jim Al-Khalili holds a University of Surrey Distinguished Chair in physics and a university chair in the Public Engagement in Science at the University of Surrey, where he is a theoretical physicist, author, and broadcaster. In this episode, Robinson and Jim talk about the fundamentals of quantum biology, including what it is, how some animals—like Robinson’s namesake, the Robin—take advantage of quantum mechanics, how exotic phenomena like quantum tunneling fit into the biological world, and how quantum mechanics relates to the arrow of time. Jim’s latest book is The Joy of Science (Princeton, 2022).

OUTLINE
00:00 Introduction
03:02 What Is Quantum Biology?
17:00 How Do Robins Use Quantum Mechanics?
26:42 Where Does Quantum Tunneling Fit into Biology?
34:16 What is Quantum Decoherence?
40:03 Jim on His Preferred Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics
43:18 Quantum Mechanics and the Arrow of Time

Robinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University. Join him in conversations with philosophers, scientists, weightlifters, artists, and everyone in-between.

[PaulMooney-yl]

Jim's Atom series is the best science series ive ever seen.

[themaximus]

Your podcast is so good. The guests are top tier, and the questions are insightful. Over the past 6 months this has become go-to place for philosophy and science interviews on the internet. I even prefer it to Mindscape which is saying something because I really really REALLY like Mindscape. Anyways, I'll be subbing to your Patreon shortly.

P.S. I recently started picking up some intro to Philosophy books to read through. Your podcast has been a big part of awakening a very old interest of mine in philosophy. So, thanks for that.

[robdin]

Jim has been one of my favorite physicist who is in the public a lot for a while now. His BBC documentary about quantum physics is probably one of the best explanations, in common words, of how strange quantum mechanics really is. Great podcast, thank you!

[isedairi]

Hey Robinson have you tried getting Susskind? Everybody always asks him about Feynman, Hawking, etc. Ask him about David Gross. Seems they have always been very competitive towards each other.

[MrKrisstain]

Keep going Robinson! I listen to you on a podcast app, so cant really give you any feedback. Really appreciate this podcast.

[anthonybrett]

Brilliant! Keep up the great content Robinson.

[ariadne]

17:30 the European robin (erithacus rubecula) story - absolutely fascinating.

[alexandertaylorparis]

My goodness, this is so fascinating - quantum entanglement in the retinas of robins on their way south - :)

[voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang]

if you read "Life on the Edge" they mention Pascual Jordan realizing that noncommutativity as nonlocality causes negentropy to self-amplify to the macroscale. Professor Basil J. Hiley in his 2022 Quantum consciousness book chapter emphasizes that quantum biology has wrongly assumed that quantum coherence "collapses" at the macroscale because it ignores noncommutativity. Professor Hiley (like Costa de Beauregard) is not afraid to realize that telepathy is indeed possible as explained by noncommutativity (just as Eddie Oshins realized when he worked at SLAC and his boss H.P. Noyes also acknowledged).

[jeff__w]

2:26 “I’ve decided to jettison for the time being transcripts since people don’t seem to be that interested in them and they take a lot of time just to do poorly.”
Just grab the automatically-generated transcript from YouTube and clean that up—it’s not that hard or time-consuming to do in that case. (You could probably even run that transcript through a chatbot and have that do a preliminary cleanup.)

[noahabraham]

I keep thinking light, is sticky.

If magnetic fields are channeling part of the electric magnetic spectrum to the north and south poles.
Maybe there is a polarization effect that birds have in their eyes?

[kennethmarshall]

16:34: Jim says that the likelihood of life emerging is hugely hugely tiny. However, the number of galaxies and, even more so, planets in the universe is hugely hugely big and therefore even something that seems unlikely has a good chance of actually happening. It’s like playing the lottery often enough and, eventually, you’ll win. It only had to happen once and obviously we would be it!

[thomasvieth]

Ten minutes into the talk and Philip Ball has not been mentioned. Perhaps Jim is in direct competition with Philip?

[kennethmarshall]

14:44: Jim says that we still don’t know how chemistry becomes biology. Biology is chemistry.

[VDP]

Meh..anybody that denies telepathy as "woo woo stuff" doesn't REALLY grasp the magnitude of existence and that we are only scratching the surface of this bizarre and impossibly deep reality