Since we are no longer inclined to eliminatefailures in the harsh way the Lacedemonians used to adopt inthe Taygetos mountain,

In using the picture we usually forgetabout them, except in the quite general way that we know ouridea of a light-wave is not a haphazard invention of a crankbut is based on experiment.

His paper was forgotten and was onlyrediscovered in 1900, simultaneously and independently, byCorrens (Berlin), de Vries (Amsterdam) and Tschermak(Vienna).

The results he published as early as1866 in the Proceedings of the Naturforschender Verein in Brunn.

A recessive allele influences the phenotype only when thegenotype is homozygous.

that mutations are very oftenlatent

de Vries first published his discovery, in 1902

In other words, he would have expected to produce byselection an increase of the average length of the awns.

that in the offspring even of thoroughly pure-bred stocks, avery small number of individuals, say two or three in tens ofthousands, turn up with small but 'jump-like' changes, theexpression 'jump-like' not meaning that the change is so veryconsiderable, but that there is a discontinuity inasmuch asthere are no intermediate forms between the unchanged andthe few changed. De Vries called that a mutation.

In calling the structure of the chromosome fibres a code-script

The reason for this is, that what we call thought (I) is itselfan orderly thing, and (2) can only be applied to material, i.e.to perceptions or experiences, which have a certain degree oforderliness.

Whatdegree of permanence do we encounter in hereditaryproperties and what must we therefore attribute to thematerial structures which carry them?

The course of events is appropriately called alternation ofgenerations.

syngamy

Some time ago we were told in thenewspapers that in his African campaign General Mont-gomery made a point of having every single soldier of his armymeticulously informed of all his designs. If that is true (as itconceivably might be, considering the high intelligence andreliability of his troops) it provides an excellent analogy to ourcase, in which the corresponding fact certainly is literally true.

Ontogenesis is the development of the individual, during its lifetime, as opposed tophylogenesis, the development of species within geological periods.

four-dimensional pattern

I must begin with giving a brief summary of the situation inbiology, more especially in genetics - in other words, I haveto summarize the present state of knowledge in a subject ofwhich I am not a master. This cannot be helped and Iapologize, particularly to any biologist, for the dilettantecharacter of my summary.

Das Sein ist ewig; denn GesetzeBewahren die lebend'gen Schatze,Aus welchen sich das All geschmiickt. I GOETHE

The laws of physics and physical chemistry areinaccurate within a probable relative error of the order of I Ivn,where n is the number of molecules that co-operate to bringabout that law - to produce its validity within such regions ofspace or time (or both) that matter, for some considerations orfor some particular experiment.

Y n law

You have to multiplyobservations, in order to eliminate the effect of the Brownianmovement of your instrument. This example is, I think,particularly illuminating in our present investigation. For ourorgans of sense, after all, are a kind of instrument. We can seehow useless they would be if they became too sensi tive.

Curie'slaw

This ingenious explanation is due to the French physicist P.Langevin.

And why could all this not be fulfilled in the case of anorganism composed of a moderate number of atoms only andsensitive already to the impact of one or a few atoms only?

Why shouldan organ like our brain, with the sensorial system attached toit, of necessity consist of an enormous number of atoms, inorder that its physically changing state should be in close andintimate correspondence with a highly developed thought?

Even if I should be right in this, I do not know whether myway of approach is really the best and simplest. But, in short,it was mine. The 'naive physicist' was myself. And I could notfind any better or clearer way towards the goal than my owncrooked one.

compare his theoretical anticipations with the biological facts.

the most essential part of a living cell - the chromosome fibre- may suitably be called an aperiodic crystal.

The large and important and very much discussed question is:How can the events in space and time which take place withinthe spatial boundary of a living organism be accounted for byphysics and chemistry?

The reason for this wasnot that the subject was simple enough to be explainedwithout mathematics, but rather that it was much tooinvolved to be fully accessible to mathematics.

the lectures could not be termed popular, eventhough the physicist's most dreaded weapon, mathematicaldeduction, would hardly be utilized.

some of us should venture toembark on a synthesis of facts and theories, albeit withsecond-hand and incomplete knowledge of some of them -and at the risk of making fools of ourselves.

W e have inherited from our forefathers the keen longing forunified, all-embracing knowledge.

THE RELATION BETWEEN CLOCKWORK ANDORGANISM

DelbruckJs Model Discussed and Tested