brain01 In most cases, phonons are the primary heat reservoir of a solid. The heat capacity of a crystalline solid is practically the same as that of a phonon gas. The thermal conductivity of a crystal may be described as the thermal conductivity of a phonon gas whose thermal resistance owes its origin to Umklapp processes.

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Debate on Macro Quantum Coherence in Biological Systems

Alfredo Pereira Jr

Thursday, 19 March 2009 13:45 UTC

A recent PNAS paper discusses a central issue for quantum consciousness theories: the existence of vibrational (phonon) coherence in biological systems (see Abstract and excerpts below). The authors argue that the phenomenon occurs in the weak but not in the strong version. A reply by Stuart Hameroff follows.
Alfredo

In most cases, phonons are the primary heat reservoir of a solid. The heat capacity of a crystalline solid is practically the same as that of a phonon gas. The thermal conductivity of a crystal may be described as the thermal conductivity of a phonon gas whose thermal resistance owes its origin to Umklapp processes.
The scattering of conduction electrons in interactions with phonons is the primary mechanism that gives rise to the electrical resistance of metals and semiconductors. The ability of conduction electrons to emit and absorb phonons leads to the mutual attraction of the electrons; at low temperatures, this phenomenon causes various metals to become superconducting (seeSUPERCONDUCTIVITY and COOPER EFFECT). The emission of phonons by excited atoms and molecules in solids makes it possible for nonradiative electronic transitions to occur. During relaxation processes in solids, phonons usually serve as a sink for the energy stored by other degrees of freedom of the crystal, for example, the electronic degrees of freedom