Question: Can we create life using Quantum Mechanics? Can we make a person alive who died an hour ago? Why can't we??

Jack Miller answered on 26 Jun 2013:

Hi Sanban,

People love to mis-apply quantum mechanics to life. Life is a multi-scale process, with machinery working on scales where quantum mechanics is important (for example, the light-harvesting complex inside plant leaves), to scales where it is really not (like us). Much of what you care about as life — your brain — is a state of regulation; it’s the system of electrical impulses running through the nerves in your head. We can’t bring people back from the dead as, when they’re dead, those nerves stop firing, and the information that’s encoded in those firings is not recoverable. It’s like pulling the plug on your computer — anything stored in ram is effectively lost.

Hope that helps!

— Jack