vii“6x9” b2861 The Cell Language Theory: Connecting Mind and MatterPreface
There may be a useful analogy that can be drawn between biology and
cosmology. Just as we can recognize five distinct stages of development
in the history of cosmology as indicated in Table P1, so perhaps the his-
tory of biology, i.e., the history of the development of our knowledge of
life, may also be divided into at least five major stages. One such possibil-
ity is suggested in the right-hand column of Table P1, mainly based on my
own limited research results obtained over the last four-and-a-half
decades.
Anyone attempting to write (or read) a book on the living cell, the
basic unit of life, may do well to remember that there are about hundred
thousand million (10^11 ) stars in the Milky Way Galaxy and an equally
numerous number of galaxies in the Universe, whereas we can only see
a few thousand individual stars with our naked eyes on a clear night
[472]. If we can compare the discovery in 1953 of the DNA double helix
by Watson and Crick to the earth-centered view of Aristotle’s Universe
of the 4th century BC, the cell-centered biology ushered in by the theo-
retical models of the living cell such as the Bhopalator [15–17] formu-
lated in 1985 may be akin to the sun-centered Universe of Copernicus of
the mid-16th century. By the early 20th century, astronomy underwent
three more “revolutions”: (i) our sun is only one of about 10^12 stars in the
Milky Way Galaxy, (ii) the Milky Way Galaxy is only one of about 10^12b2861_FM.indd 7 17-10-2017 11:34:58 AM