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To many modern scientists, a living thing is not significantly different from a lifeless object, and is to be understood in terms of its basic parts (genes and molecules). So while science has given us many wonderful things, it has also taken something essential away: our ability to seriously consider life as a unique form of energy.
Alexis Pietak argues that the livingness of a life form is a very real kind of energy which must be recognized along with other kinds of energy such as heat and light. In this book she builds an entirely new, holistic and rational science of life which could enhance our understanding of individual life forms, ecological systems, and even human sustainability on our planet.
Alexis Pietak, PhD, is a biophysicist, biomedical scientist, and author. Alexis divides her time between the ocean lapped shores of Dunedin, New Zealand, and the deciduous woodlands of Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Life as Energy is her first book.
'Masterpiece of a brilliant young mind, Life as Energy exquisitely illustrates the elemental links between the hidden dynamics of energy physics, the connecting creativity of our planet's living web, and the unhappy yearnings of our now profoundly out-of-place human lives. Advancing the vision of such masterworks as James Lovelock's Gaia and D'arcy Thompson's On Growth and Form, the world needs more of Dr. Pietak's work soon.' -- Dr. S. J. Goerner, Director The Integral Science Institute, author of After the Clockwork Universe.
'Life as Energy is a wide ranging, well written, and readable book drawing important parallels between physics concepts such as energy and quantum mechanics system states and the characteristics of complex living systems. The result is a novel framework that helps make sense of biological life cycles, ecology, and sustainable interactions with our environments. I am most impressed by the clarity and breadth of the many concepts Life as Energy explains at a level accessible to a general reader.' -- Michael Sayer, Professor Emeritus of Physics at Queen's University, Canada
