Life on the Edge (2024)

Life on the Edge

The smell of an orange, a robin in flight the festive season is about simple things. But if you think that such pleasures are born of equally straightforward processes, then think again. According to Jim Al-Khalili and Johnjoe McFadden’s Life on the Edge, these have their roots in physics so mind-bending they made even Einstein do a double take: quantum mechanics.

All matter is made up of particles electrons, protons and so on that have to obey the weird laws of quantum mechanics (one of which allows them to be in two places at once), but usually stop short of affecting the whole object through collisions or vibrations within it. “The strange quantum stuff that happens at the level of the very small doesn’t usually make a difference to the big stuff like cars or toasters that we see and use every day,” say the authors.

Life however appears to be different. Indeed, this means female robins can migrate in winter has an internal compass with a power that would not disgrace an X-Men character: magnetoreception. The idea is that a chemical in a robin’s eye can shuffle its electrons around when it absorbs light with just the right amount of energy; some quantum hocus-pocus allows this shuffling to create a system that exists in two states at once. Whichever state predominates demands one reaction over another but which state does so, hence which reaction occurs, depends on Earth’s magnetic field: if it points towards or away from the Equator as far as our hero is concerned.

But we too exploit quantum effects. In fact, these give rise to most among other things enzymes speed up chemical reactions by without them such processes might take millions more times longer than they do; while our olfactory prowess could owe something to jiggery-pokery allowing us recognize limonene molecules wafting our way for what they are: orangey.

There is much to enjoy in the science that this book presents not least the revelation that a molecule of turpentine smells like an orange, if you’re its mirror image. The throwaway lines are just as good: “A sheep with very short legs was born on a New England farm in the late 18th century and bred to produce a variety called Ancon sheep, easier manage because they cannot jump fences,” note authors in one of their lighter moments.

But whether heavyweight revelations will provoke gasp of awe such clearly expect is less certain. For example, though they hardly pause for breath between saying plant leaf behaves quantum computer and taking another 30 pages to explain what means.

That is not to say that the metaphors of Al-Khalili and McFadden are not great: many of them are imaginative little stories about basic principles of chemistry. But this is not a popular science triumph either. While each chapter begins with a charming story about an unlucky dinosaur or mysterious bird, readers are supposed to be familiar with a chemist’s shorthand and the dictionary definition of a physicist.

Equally annoying is their habit of summoning up one analogy after another only to say “but that’s not quite right; try this one”, until they have constructed a wobbling house of cards which rests on remembering complicated terminology and situations introduced several chapters earlier. However, if you stick at it, the later section on how life emerged from the primordial soup will make you see the world anew.

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