Irene Manton, Erwin Schrödinger and the Puzzle of Chromosome Structure

Abstract

Erwin Schrödinger's 1944 publication What is Life? is a classic of twentieth century science writing. In his book, Schrödinger discussed the chromosome fibre as the seat of heredity and variation thanks to a hypothetical aperiodic structure - a suggestion that famously spurred on a generation of scientists in their pursuit of the gene as a physico-chemical entity. While historical attention has been given to physicists who were inspired by the book, little has been written about its biologist readers. This paper examines the case of the English evolutionary botanist and cytologist Irène Manton, who took an interest in What is Life? for its relevance to her own research in chromosome structure as a clue to plant phylogeny. Drawing on recently discovered correspondence between Manton and Schrödinger, the paper reconstructs Manton 's path to the book (including the role of the chemist-philosopher Michael Polanyi) and her response to it by way of throwing new light on a pivotal moment in the history of the debate on chromosome structure.

EyeChrom and CCDBcurator: Visualizing chromosome count data from plants

“…Works like Irene Manton's Problems of Cytology and Evolution in the Pteridophyta (Manton, ) contributed substantially to the numbers of published chromosome counts for plants. These data have facilitated insights on plant evolution and the prevalence of polyploidy in plants in addition to untangling species complexes (Williams, ).…”

Women in the Historiography of Biology

“…For the USA, see Ogilvie (2007), Richmond (2012), and Dietrich and Tambasco (2007). On cytogenetics, see Brush (1978), Ogilvie and Choquette (1981), Cross and Steward (1993), and Echeverría (2000) (all of which focus on the work of Nettie Marie Stevens); see also Richmond (2010), and Williams (2016). For Germany, see Satzinger (Satzinger 2004(Satzinger , 2008(Satzinger , 2009a and Deichmann (Deichmann 1997(Deichmann , 2014 and Fisher 2014; Love 1983).…”

Schrödinger's code-script: not a genetic cipher but a code of development

“…Sarkar (2013) is a comprehensive discussion with references to more recent studies. Williams (2016) examines the exchanges e especially in their unpublished correspondence in 1945 e between Schrödinger and Manton concerning chromosome structure. Cobb (2015) takes a fresh, extended look at how the genetic code was established.…”