Walter M. Elsasser

Infobox Scientist
name = Walter Maurice Elsasser
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caption = Walter Maurice Elsasser
birth_date = March 20, 1904
birth_place = Mannheim, Germany
death_date = October 14, 1991
death_place = Baltimore, United States
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field = physics
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known_for = geodynamo theory
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Walter Maurice Elsasser (born March 20, 1904, in Mannheim, Germany; died October 14, 1991, in Baltimore) was a physicist and is considered "father" of the geodynamo theory. Long before he became known for his geodynamo theory, while in Göttingen in the 1920s, he has suggested the experiment to test the wave aspect of electrons. This suggestion of Elsasser was later communicated by his senior colleague from Göttingen (Nobel Prize recipient Max Born) to physicists in England. This explained the results of the Davisson-Germer and Thomson experiments later awarded with the Nobel Prize in Physics. In 1935, while working in Paris, Elsasser calculated the binding energies of protons and neutrons in heavy radioactive nuclei. Wigner, Jensen and Meyer received the Nobel in 1963 for work developing out of Elsasser's initial formulation. Elsasser therefore came quite close to a Nobel prize on two occasions.

Over 1946-1947, Elsasser published papers outlining the theory that the Earth's electromagnetic field is powered by eddy currents at the planet's liquid core. This had been developed from around 1941 onwards, partly in his spare time during his scientific war service with the US Signal Corps.

In his later years, Elsasser became interested in what is now called systems biology and contributed a series of articles to Journal of Theoretical Biology [Citation
id = PMID:6656269
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6656269
last=Elsasser
first=W M
publication-date=1983 Nov 7
year=1983
title=Biological application of the statistical concepts used in the Second Law.
volume=105
issue=1
periodical=J. Theor. Biol.
pages=103-16] [Citation
id = PMID:7109657
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7109657
last=Elsasser
first=W M
publication-date=1982 May 7
year=1982
title=The other side of molecular biology.
volume=96
issue=1
periodical=J. Theor. Biol.
pages=67-76] [Citation
id = PMID:7278305
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7278305
last=Elsasser
first=W M
publication-date=1981 Mar 7
year=1981
title=Principles of a new biological theory: a summary.
volume=89
issue=1
periodical=J. Theor. Biol.
pages=131-50] [Citation
id = PMID:5080452
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/5080452
last=Elsasser
first=W M
publication-date=1972 Sep
year=1972
title=A model of biological indeterminacy.
volume=36
issue=3
periodical=J. Theor. Biol.
pages=627-33] [Citation
id = PMID:5383506
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/5383506
last=Elsasser
first=W M
publication-date=1969 Nov
year=1969
title=The mathematical expression of generalized complementarity.
volume=25
issue=2
periodical=J. Theor. Biol.
pages=276-96] [Citation
id = PMID:5875342
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/5875342
last=Elsasser
first=W M
publication-date=1964 Jul
year=1964
title=Synopsis of organismic theory.
volume=7
issue=1
periodical=J. Theor. Biol.
pages=53-67] [Citation
id = PMID:5875158
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/5875158
last=Elsasser
first=W M
publication-date=1963 Mar
year=1963
title=Note on evolution in organismic theory.
volume=4
issue=2
periodical=J. Theor. Biol.
pages=166-74] . The final version of his thoughts on this subject can be found in his book Reflections on a Theory of Organisms, published in 1987 and again posthumously with a new forward by Harry Rubin in 1998.

Biotonic laws

A biotonic law, a phrase coined by Elsasser, is a law of nature which cannot be contained in the laws of physics. [Eugene P. Wigner. (1967). "Symmetries and Reflections." "Scientific Essays". Indiana University. Pais, Science 25 August: 911-912DOI: 10.1126/science.157.3791.911] Elsasser's biological work is still quite controversial, and in fact sits in an odd relationship to the field of systems biology he helped to found. Central to Elsasser's biological thought is the notion of the astronomical complexity of the cell. Elsasser deduced from this that any investigation of a causative chain of events in a biological system will reach a "terminal point", where the number of possible inputs into the chain will overwhelm the capacity of the scientist to make predictions, even with the most powerful computers. This might seem like a counsel of despair, but in fact Elsasser was not calling for the abandonment of biology as a worthwhile research arena, but rather for a different kind of biology where molecular causal chains are no longer the main focus of study. Correlation between supra-molecular events would become the main data source.

References

Publications

* "The Physical Foundation of Biology. An Analytical Study", (1958), Pergamon Press, London
* "Atom and Organism. A New Approach to Theoretical Biology", (1966) Princeton University Press
* "The Chief Abstractions of Biology", (1975), North Holland, Amsterdam.
* "Memoirs of a Physicist in the Atomic Age", (1978)
* "The role of individuality in biological theory", (1970) in "Towards a Theoretical Biology vol.3" Edinburgh University Press
* "Reflections on a Theory of Organisms. Holism in Biology", (1998) Johns Hopkins University Press (JHU).

The Olin Hall at the Johns Hopkins University has a Walter Elsasser Memorial in the lobby.

Biographical Entry

* Beyler R & Gatherer D (2007) "Walter Elsasser (biography)". In: "Dictionary of Scientific Biography", new ed. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons Inc.

Web pages

* [http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=4990&page=103 Extensive biography at The National Academies Press]

* [http://www.bentham.org/open/tobioj/openaccess2.htm Gatherer D: Finite universe of discourse. The systems biology of Walter Elsasser. The Open Biology Journal 2 4-15]