9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I'd like to introduce you [br]to an emerging area of science. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 One that is still speculative,[br]but hugely exciting. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's certainly one that's [br]growing very rapidly. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Quantum biology asks[br]a very simple question. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Does quantum mechanics, that weird[br]and wonderful, and powerful theory 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of the subatomic world[br]of atoms and molecules 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that underpins so much of modern[br]physics and chemistry, also play 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a role inside the living cell? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In other words, are there processes,[br]mechanisms, phenomena in living organisms 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that can only be explained with a helping[br]hand from quantum mechanics. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Now, quantum biology isn't new.[br]It's been around since the early 1930s. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But its only in the last decade or so,[br]that careful experiments 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in biochemistry labs, using spectroscopy[br]that have shown clear, firm evidence 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that there are certain specific mechanisms[br]that require quantum mechanics 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to explain them. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Quantum biology brings together [br]quantum physicists, biochemists, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 molecular biologists. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's a very interdisciplinary field. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I come from quantum physics.[br]So, I'm a nuclear physicist. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I've spent more than three decades trying [br]to get my head around quantum mechanics. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 One of the founders of quantum [br]mechanics, Neil Bohr said, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 If you're not astonished by it,[br]then you haven't understood it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, I sort of feel happy that I'm still[br]astonished by it and that's a good thing. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But it means I study the very smallest[br]structures in the universe. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The building blocks of reality. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 If we think about the scale of size,[br]start with something, an everyday object 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like the tennis ball, and just go down[br]orders of magnitude and size. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 From the eye of a needle, down to a cell,[br]down to a bacterium, down to an enzyme. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You eventually reach the nano world. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Now, nanotechnology may [br]be a term you've heard of. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 A nanometer is [br]a billionth of a meter. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 My area is the atomic nucleus,[br]which is the tiny dot inside an atom. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's even smaller in scale. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This is the domain of quantum mechanics,[br]and physicists and chemists have had 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a long time to get used to it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Biologists on the other hand[br]have got off lightly, in my view. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 They are very happy with their [br]balls-and-sticks models of molecules. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (Laughter) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The balls are the atoms, the sticks[br]are the bonds between the atoms 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and when they can't build them[br]physically in the lab, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 nowadays they have very powerful[br]computers that will simulate a huge model. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This is a protein made up [br]of 100,000 atoms. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It doesn't really require much in the way [br]of quantum mechanics to explain it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Quantum mechanics was [br]developed in the 1920s. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It is a set of beautiful and powerful [br]mathematical rules and ideas 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that explain the world[br]of the very small. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And it's a world that very different[br]from our everyday world 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 made up of trillions of atoms. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's a world built on probability[br]and chance. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's a fuzzy world. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's a world of phantoms, where particles[br]can also behave like spread out waves. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 If we imagine quantum mechanics[br]or quantum physics, then as 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the fundamental [br]foundation of reality itself. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That's not really surprising[br]that we say quantum physics 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 underpins organic chemistry. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 After all, it gives us the rules[br]that tells us the rules that tell us 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 how the atoms fit together[br]to make organic molecules. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Organic chemistry, scaled up in complexity[br]gives us molecular biology, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 which of course leads [br]to life itself. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, in a way, it's sort [br]of not surprising. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's almost trivial. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Say, well of course life ultimately[br]must depend of quantum mechanics 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 -- so does everything else. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So does all inanimate matter, [br]made up of trillions of atoms. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Ultimately, there's a quantum level[br]that we know where we have to delve 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 into this weridness. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But in everyday life, [br]we can forget about it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Because once you put together trillions [br]of atoms, that quantum weirdness 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 just dissolves away. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Quantum biology isn't about this.[br]Quantum biology isn't this obvious. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Of course quantum mechanics underpins[br]life at some molecular level. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Quantum biology is about looking[br]for the non-trivial, the counterintuitive 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 ideas in quantum mechanics and to see[br]if they do indeed play an important role 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in describing the processes of life. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Here is my perfect example[br]of the counterintuitiveness 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of the quantum world. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This is the quantum skiier. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 He seems to be intact, he seems[br]to be perfectly healthy. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And yet, he seems to have gone around[br]both sides of that tree at the same time. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Well, if you saw some tracks like that[br]you'd guess some sort of stunt of course. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But in the quantum world,[br]this happens all the time. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Particles ca multitask, they can be[br]in two places at once. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 They can do more than[br]one thing at the same time. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Particles can behave[br]like spread out waves. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's almost like magic. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Physicists and chemists have had[br]nearly a century of trying 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to get used to this weirdness. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I don't blame the biologists for not[br]having or wanting to learn 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 quantum mechanics. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You see, this weirdness is very delicate[br]and we physicists work very hard 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to maintain it on our labs. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We sort of cool our system down[br]to near absolute zero, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We carry out our experiments [br]in vacuums, we try and isolate it 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 from any external disturbance. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That's very different from the warm,[br]messy, noisy environment of a living cell.