“Delbrück and Luria’s work spawned the so-called Phage Group of scientists working at universities across the country—sometimes called the Phage Church—and set the stage for great leaps in molecular biology. Adherents were inspired by a slight book written by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1944 titled What Is Life?, which posited that biology might be governed by universal laws like those that explained chemistry and physics.”