ABSTRACT
A number of famous physicists attempted to transplant physical concepts into biology. H. Haken included biological systems in his theory of synergetics, and A. S. Davydov searched for solitons in bioenergetics. For most biologists, biophysics conjures up images of complicated experimental instrumentation built by physicists. X-ray crystallography and neutron diffraction techniques have enabled dramatic advances in molecular biology. Theoretical physics is equally important as a conceptual tool and a language within which appropriate descriptions can be found for complex biological processes. The proportional representation of theory and experiment found in condensed matter physics is an example to be emulated by the biophysicists of the future. Finding new areas of application for the powerful experimental techniques of biophysics, molecular biologists adopted almost without change the original theoretical interpretations of the techniques, notwithstanding their different initial targets of investigation that were not nearly as complex as biological systems.
