Physics - Molecular Theory of the Living Cell - page 26

Table 2.6 The Symmetry Principle of Biology and Physics represented diagrammatically. Based
on the postulated symmetry, the new term, mattergy, was coined. The inverted T symbolizes the
supplementarity relation, and the triangle symbolizes the complementarity relation
Principles Physics Biology
________________________________________________________________________
Supplementarity :

Mattergy 'Liformation'

Matter Energy Life Information
________________________________________________________________________

Complementarity : Quons 'Gnergy'

Particle Wave Mattergy 'Liformation'

work or energy, and - on meaning discrete entity or particle). Gnergons are discrete
units of gnergy. One concrete example of gnergons in action in molecular and cell
biology is the conformon , the mechanical energy stored in sequence-specific sites
within biopolymers as conformational strains (for the experimental evidence for
conformons, see Chap. 8 ) .
The concept of gnergy embodies the principle of information and energy
complementarity (PIEC), according to which gnergy is responsible for driving all
self-organizing processes in the Universe, including the origin of life, physico-
chemical processes occurring in the living cell such as self-replication and chemo-
taxis, cognitive processes in the human brain, biological evolution, and the
evolution of the Universe Itself. According to PIEC, the ATP molecule which
plays a fundamental role in most, if not all, self-organizing processes inside the
cell carries not only energy as is usually assumed (about 16 kcal/mol under
physiological conditions) but also chemical information encoded in its three-
dimensional molecular shapes. Thus, it can be predicted that, for some biochemical
processes driven by ATP, ATP cannot be replaced by deoxy-ATP even though the
latter can be hydrolyzed by ATPase to generate the same amount of free energy,
because the deoxy-ATP molecule does not have the same information (i.e., molec-
ular shape) as ATP. An analogy may be suggested here: Although a US dollar bill
and a Korean 1,000-Won bill have approximately the same monetary value (analo-
gous to energy ), the latter cannot replace the former in a vending machine in the US
because it has different information (e.g., a different shape, color, and size) from
that of a US dollar bill.
PIEC is expected to be manifested in the Universe in many different guises. The
wave-particle complementarity is perhaps the best-known example of PIEC in