Light in the Powerhouse? The Quantum Mitochondria Preprint

Deep End Era. Engineering with Sankalp · Oct 12, 2026 · 1h 2m

Reliability engineer Theo Marchetti gets a screenshot from his sister Ines, a mitochondria biologist in Lisbon: "scientists proved every mitochondrion is a tiny quantum device running at 71 THz." Over a week they take the paper apart together. We build the background from first principles: mitochondria and the electron transport chain, Peter Mitchell's chemiosmosis and the ATP synthase turbine, and whether life's energy efficiency really needs quantum physics. Then we look at the history of quantum biology: the 2007 photosynthesis coherence result and its 2020 reassessment, the robin's…