Mr. Tompkins inside himself: Adventures in the new biology

285 Pages·1968·11.8 MB·English

by  George Gamow

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" Mr. Tompkins
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Inside Himself
Adventures in the New Biology
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With illustrations-by George Gamow
574.02
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1092
London ..' ..
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GEORGE ALLEN AND UNWIN LTD
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1968
FIRsTPUBLISHEDIN GREATBRITAININ
This bookis ~ght undertheBerne Convention. Apartfrom any
fair dealingfir the purjJose ofprivate study, research, criticism or
review,as permitted underthe CopyrightAct, 1956, noportionmay
be reproduced by any processwithout written Permission. Enquiriu
shouldbeaddressedtothepublisher.
.\ © 1967GeorgeGamowandMartynas nas
SBN04 570006 0
Partsofthis book are basedon materialpreviously
publishedin Mr. TompkinsLearnstheFactsofLift
byGeorgeGamow,publishedbyCambridgeUniversityPressin1953
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PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
BY PHOTOLITHOGRAPHY
UNWIN BROTHERS LIMITED
WOKING AND LONDON
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" ... Oh solve me the riddle of living,
That age-old, tormenting riddle,
That many a head has brooded over,
Heads in hieroglyphic bonnets,
Heads in turban and black mortar board,
Periwig heads and a thousand other
Poor, perspiring heads of people-
Tell me this, what meaning has man?
From where is he come? Where does he go?
Who dwells up there on starlets golden? ... "
-H. HEINE, The Sea and the Hills, trans
lated by Frederick T. Wood. (Boston:
Chapman and Grimes, Inc., 1946.)
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Acknowledgments
It is the authors' pleasant duty to thank those who have helped with the
preparation of this volume: Dr. R. W. G.Wyckoff, Laboratory of Physical
Biology, National Institutes of Health, for an electronmicrograph of bac
teriophages; Dr. M. Dernerec, Department of Genetics, Carnegie Institution
of Washington, for a photomicrograph of fruitfly chromosomes; Charles
Lehman, Los Alamos, New Mexico, for an anthropomorphic photograph of
J.
the Maniac; Dr. Z. Young, University College, London, for a photo
micrograph of a eat's cerebral cortex; Dr. M. H. F. Wilkins and Dr. W.
Fuller, Kings College, London, for a photograph of the X-ray diffraction
pattern from a fiber of DNA; and Dr. David S. Smith and the Revue
Canadienne de Biologie for an electronmicrograph of a cross-section of
aphid muscle. Thus, if one takes the illustrations literally, Mr. Tompkins
has the chromosomes of a fruitfiy, the brains of a cat, and the muscles of
an aphid. But, considering the basic similarity of the structural elements
of all living things, it really doesn't matter much.
We thank Miss Luanna Love and A. A. Ayres for some of the drawings;
Chapman and Grimes for permission to quote from a translation
of Heinrich Heine's The Sea and the Hills; Victor Gollancz and The
New Yorker for permission to quote "A Bitter Life" by John Updike;
and Yale University Press for permission to quote from John von Neu
mann's The Computer and the Brain.
It is our particular pleasure to express our gratitude to Mrs. Beatric:e
Rosenfeld of The Viking Press for her help and advice in the preparation
of the manuscript. On many occasions we have tried her patience sorely.
G.G.
M.Y.

Contents
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INTRODUCTION Xllt
I. THROUGH THE BLOOD STREAM 3
2. MUSCLE BEACH J}
3. THE HEART ON THE WRONG SIDE 63
4. GENE'S PIECE OF MIND 88
5. THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST IIO
6. AN OCEAN VOYAGE I34
7. THE CLOCK TICKS I66
8. THE MANIAC Iff9
g. BRAINY STUFF 2I6
10. THE LAKE OF DREAMS 242
INDEX 269
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§
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Illustrations
There was a violent feeling of suction. . . . 5
Mr. Tompkins felt that his miseries were over. 6
"Pendants" in an immature form of hemoglobin molecule. 8
Every amino acid has one carbon atom, to which two snaps are
attached. 9
Route of Mr. Tompkins's travels through his blood stream. 15
Inside the heart on the erythrocyte raft. 17
Nothing but the influenza virus. . . 21
A molecule of epinephrine, or "scary hormone," 25
Vitamin C, found in spinach. 26
They looked like giant tadpoles. . . . 29
A man with snow-white hair, flexing his muscles at the water's
~. M
How to get mechanical work out of two beakers of water. 41
The myofibrils are themselves banded. 44
Electronmicrograph of the retina of a butterfly'S eye. 46
Electronmicrograph ofa bean mosaic virus. 46
Electronmicrograph of DNA fibers, 46
Electronmicrograph of a section of aphid flight muscle. 48
The cell isriddled with very small tubes or channels. . . 51
The inner walls of the mitochondria. 52
Depolarization along the nerve fiber. 55
Topological comparison between a football and a bicycle tire. 66
It is not advisable for a matador to run around a Mobius surface. 68
xi
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