ABSTRACT
The “What is life” question cannot be restricted to biology. When looking at life from outside, one can ask the question of what is life's role in the universe, what is unique about life, and why it exists? Before these questions could be asked, the universe had to become self-conscious. The passion for understanding the secrets of life initiated the development of molecular biology. Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger already had the Nobel Prize in Physics when his love for life brought him to biology after he left war-torn mainland Europe to teach at the Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. Schrödinger's ideas about what is life are undeservedly forgotten and rarely mentioned in modern molecular biology textbooks.
