9 found
Order:
Disambiguations
Walter M. Elsasser [8]Walter Maurice Elsasser [1]
  1. Reflections on a theory of organisms: holism in biology.Walter M. Elsasser - 1987 - Baltimore, Md: Published for the Johns Hopkins Dept. of Earth and Planetary Sciences by the Johns Hopkins University Press.
    Are living organisms--as Descartes argued--just machines? Or is the nature of life such that it can never be fully explained by mechanistic models? In this thought-provoking and controversial book, eminent geophysicist Walter M. Elsasser argues that the behavior of living organisms cannot be reduced to physico-chemical causality. Suggesting that molecular biology today is at the same point as Newtonian physics on the eve of the quantum revolution, Elsasser lays the foundation for a theoretical biology that points the way toward a (...)
    Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   14 citations  
  2.  1
    The physical foundation of biology.Walter M. Elsasser - 1958 - New York,: Pergamon Press.
  3.  28
    Atom and organism.Walter Maurice Elsasser - 1966 - Princeton, N.J.,: Princeton University Press.
    "The time-honored dualism of the mutually exclusive systems of thought, mechanistic biology on the one hand and vitalism on the other, expresses a pair of theoretical approaches which are both inadequate. We shall show how they can be replaced by an abstractly descriptive system of a different type that is far better adapted to the nature of biology"--Preface.
    Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  4.  10
    The chief abstractions of biology.Walter M. Elsasser - 1975 - New York: American Elsevier Pub. Co..
  5. Atom and Organism.Walter M. Elsasser - 1969 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 20 (1):89-92.
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  6.  84
    Quantum mechanics, amplifying processes, and living matter.Walter M. Elsasser - 1951 - Philosophy of Science 18 (4):300-326.
    A quarter of a century has elapsed since quantum mechanics was discovered. Perhaps it is not too much to say, in retrospect, that the time was ripe for this particular development. This is attested, not only by the speed with which the edifice of the theory was completed immediately following the basic discoveries of Heisenberg and Schrödinger, but also by the rapidity, well-nigh unprecedented in the history of science with which the new results were applied to almost every branch of (...)
    Direct download (8 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  7. Atome et organisme.Walter M. Elsasser - 1966 - Paris,: Gauthier-Villars.
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  8.  36
    A natural philosophy of quantum mechanics based on induction.Walter M. Elsasser - 1973 - Foundations of Physics 3 (1):117-137.
    A systematic effort is here made to express some of the general results of quantum mechanics in a conceptual form closer to ordinary language than is the case with most modern physics. Many of the implications of the theory appear much more clearly thereby, in particular the fact that the laws of quantum mechanics are only statistical propositions about classes, not referring to individual objects. Conversely, the microscopic structure of an object cannot be precisely defined in quantum mechanical terms. To (...)
    Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  9.  69
    A reformulation of Bergson's theory of memory.Walter M. Elsasser - 1953 - Philosophy of Science 20 (1):7-21.
    The book of Bergson underlying the present study appeared in 1896. It is entitled “Matter and Memory” and is a philosophical disquisition into the relation and mutual limitations of organic life and inert matter. Bergson proposes to deal with this very general problem under the special aspect of a theory of the functioning of the human brain and the mechanism of ordinary memory. Such use of the inductive method, which starts from a special problem in order to arrive at results (...)
    Direct download (8 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark