Have you ever thought about how light emerges, how photosynthesis turns it into biological energy and how it is detected to allow us to see the world around us? What is the emergence of diseases and curative effects of their theraphies (either by drugs or by radiation or by any other means) due to? How is information transported to and processed in our brain?

At the most fundamental level, it is the motion of electrons inside and between atoms and molecules that is responsible for all these phenomena crucial for life and health. Their oscillatory motion in and around atoms/molecules forms miniscule antennas, which serve as emitters (in natural as well as man-made light sources), receptors (in photosynthesis), and detectors (in our eyes) of light.

Their motion across biological molecules transports bio-information in our nerves, is involved in processing this information in our brain. Loosely-bound atomic electrons (chemists call them valence electrons) are responsible for binding atoms together to form molecules, the smallest units of matter that is endowed with the capability of performing biological function. This biological function changes with the change in the structure of the molecule. A structural change, in turn, is triggered by motion of the electrons, too, by motion of electrons in the chemical bonds of the molecule. Hence, electron motion is also the fundamental initiator of molecular processes responsible for the emergence of a disease and the unfolding of curative effects of its treatment.

All these motions of electrons take place typically on time scales of hundreds to thousands of attoseconds. As an example, the figure shows, how a charge set free at one end of a biomolecule (red cloud) migrates to the other end within about 750 attoseconds.