Response in the Living and Non-Living

ISBN-13: 9781548845810 / Angielski / Miękka / 2017 / 218 str.

Jagadish Chandra Bose

Opis

SIR JAGADISH CHANDRA BOSE was one of the first scientists in the world to undertake interdisciplinary research by looking at plants from the vantage point of physics. He subjected plant and animal tissues to various kinds of stimulus, and found that they all showed an electric response. Finding that this reaction occurred in metals as well as plants and animals, he then proceeded to study the differences in response under various conditions. He found that all materials are numbed by cold, intoxicated by alcohol, wearied by excessive work, stupefied by anesthetics, excited by electric currents, stung by physical blows, and killed by poison. They all exhibit essentially the same reactions of fatigue and depression, together with the capacity for recovery and strength, and also permanent unresponsiveness, or death. All materials are responsive or unresponsive under the same conditions and in the same manner. His investigations showed that in the entire range of responses-regardless of whether the subject is metallic, plant or animal-there are no exceptions. The living response, in all its diverse modifications, is a repetition of the responses seen in the inorganic. Further, the nature of the response is determined not by the play of an unknowable and arbitrary vital force, but by laws that do not change, and act equally and uniformly throughout both organic and inorganic matter. This realization was always at the core of his work. He sought to show that all materials react to their environments according to the same laws; in other words, everything exists in the same field of consciousness. Om Namah Shivaya. This book was originally published in 1902.