Quantum biology: what’s real, and why your body isn’t a quantum computer

Author: Raymond Hackland · Last reviewed: 18 October 2026 · Reading time: about 7 minutes

In short

• What this is: Quantum biology asks whether living things use quantum effects, beyond the ordinary quantum chemistry that holds all molecules together.
• What the evidence says: Some effects are real and well studied, such as hydrogen tunnelling in enzymes. Others, like the quantum compass of migrating birds, are promising but unproven. The famous claim about quantum coherence in photosynthesis has largely been revised. None of this makes the body a quantum computer.
• What it means for your practice: Quantum biology is fascinating science about molecules over tiny distances and times. It gives no basis for “quantum” claims about health, and our practice makes no quantum claims.

What science says

First, a clarification. All chemistry is quantum at heart: atoms, bonds and light absorption are explained by quantum mechanics. “Quantum biology” means something narrower: cases where specifically quantum behaviour, such as tunnelling, coherence or spin effects, seems to matter for a biological function.

Enzymes and tunnelling. Label: Well studied. Enzymes are the proteins that speed up chemical reactions in cells. In some of them, a hydrogen nucleus does not climb over an energy barrier but passes through it, an effect called quantum tunnelling. A 2013 review in the Annual Review of Biochemistry explains how tunnelling in enzymes that break carbon–hydrogen bonds has become a window onto how protein motions help catalysis [1]. This happens across distances smaller than an atom, inside a single molecule.

Photosynthesis: a famous claim, revised. Label: Speculative (long-lived coherence claim) · Early evidence (vibronic research). In 2007, a team led by Gregory Engel and Graham Fleming studied a light-harvesting protein from green sulphur bacteria, cooled to −196 °C (77 K). They reported long-lived “quantum beats” and proposed that energy moved through the protein in a wavelike, quantum-coherent way, which might explain its efficiency [2]. The paper inspired a whole field. Later work reassessed it. A 2017 study of the same protein concluded that the electronic coherence disappears within about 60 femtoseconds (millionths of a billionth of a second), too fast to matter for energy transfer [3]. A 2020 review by 18 researchers concluded that the long-lived signals come mainly from molecular vibrations, and that nature makes energy transfer efficient by using its warm, “noisy” environment rather than avoiding it [4]. Research continues on how vibrations and electronic states work together [5], but the popular story that plants run on long-lived quantum coherence is not supported by the current evidence.

The bird compass. Label: Early evidence. Many night-migrating songbirds have a light-dependent magnetic compass. The leading idea is the radical-pair mechanism: light creates a pair of molecules with unpaired electrons in a protein called cryptochrome in the eye. The pair’s quantum spin state is slightly sensitive to the direction of the Earth’s magnetic field, which could change the chemical result [6]. In 2021, researchers showed that cryptochrome 4 from the European robin is magnetically sensitive in the test tube, more so than the same protein from chickens and pigeons [7]. That is important evidence, but it comes from isolated proteins, not from a working compass in a living bird. A 2025 study found that one version of the protein, cryptochrome 4b, probably plays no role [8], and in 2026 a leading researcher proposed a hybrid mechanism in which tiny magnetic crystals amplify the radical-pair effect, noting that the nature of the sensor “is far from certain” [9].

Decoherence: why this stays small. Label: Well studied. Quantum effects are fragile. Interaction with a warm, wet environment destroys quantum superpositions, a process called decoherence. For processes in the brain, physicist Max Tegmark estimated decoherence times of roughly 10⁻¹³ to 10⁻²⁰ seconds, compared with the 0.001 to 0.1 seconds over which nerve cells work [10]. The genuine examples above all happen within single molecules, over tiny distances and extremely short times. That is a very different thing from a whole body acting as one coherent quantum system.

Where popular claims go beyond the evidence

Label for this section: Speculative.

Quantum biology is real science, so it is often used to make other claims sound plausible. Here is where the line runs:

• “Science shows the body is a quantum system.” No. Specific molecules show specific quantum effects for tiny fractions of a second. Your body as a whole behaves classically [10].
• “Plants use quantum coherence, so healing energy can too.” The photosynthesis claim itself has been largely revised [3, 4], and it never said anything about humans or healing.
• “Birds sense the Earth’s field, so we can sense ‘subtle energies’.” The bird compass is a specialised system that is still under study [6–9]. It says nothing about human energy perception.
• “Quantum biology explains qi, chakras or energy medicine.” None of the research above tests these ideas. Calling them “quantum” adds a scientific-sounding word, not evidence.

For what physicists mean by “observation”, see “Quantum healing” and the observer effect; for the boldest proposal of all, quantum effects in consciousness, see Quantum consciousness: Penrose and Hameroff’s Orch-OR, fairly examined.

How this relates to the Six Healing Sounds, Qigong and neigong

Label for this section: Tradition only (for Qigong concepts) · Speculative (for any quantum link).

There is no direct connection, and Resonance Heritage Qi makes no quantum claims. Tunnelling in enzymes and spin chemistry in birds’ eyes go on regardless of whether you practise Qigong, and nothing in Liu Zi Jue depends on them.

The traditional language of Qigong and neigong, with qi, inner organs paired with sounds, and the Five Phases, is a traditional system with its own history, not a description of molecules. It is worth learning on its own terms. Describing it as “quantum” would be a metaphor at most, and the evidence in this article doesn’t support a literal link. What your practice does involve is ordinary, measurable physiology, such as the slower breathing that happens when you carry a long sound on the out-breath. If you’re curious about the physics of sound and vibration in your body, What resonance really is explains it without quantum language. For how entanglement really works, see Quantum entanglement explained, without the mysticism.

Resonance Heritage Qi is a personal, music-assisted practice inspired by Liu Zi Jue: connected to it, not a replacement for the traditional form or for study with a teacher of that tradition.

Sources

1. Klinman JP, Kohen A, 2013. Hydrogen tunneling links protein dynamics to enzyme catalysis. Annual Review of Biochemistry 82:471–496. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-biochem-051710-133623
2. Engel GS, Calhoun TR, Read EL, Ahn TK, Mančal T, Cheng YC, Blankenship RE, Fleming GR, 2007. Evidence for wavelike energy transfer through quantum coherence in photosynthetic systems. Nature 446:782–786. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature05678
3. Duan HG, Prokhorenko VI, Cogdell RJ, Ashraf K, Stevens AL, Thorwart M, Miller RJD, 2017. Nature does not rely on long-lived electronic quantum coherence for photosynthetic energy transfer. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114:8493–8498. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1702261114
4. Cao J, Cogdell RJ, Coker DF, Duan HG, Hauer J, Kleinekathöfer U, et al., 2020. Quantum biology revisited. Science Advances 6:eaaz4888. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaz4888
5. Jha A, Zheng F, Liu Z, Mukamel S, Thorwart M, Miller RJD, Duan HG, 2026. Quantum coherent dynamics in photosynthetic protein complexes. Chemical Society Reviews 55:1089–1130. https://doi.org/10.1039/d5cs00948k
6. Hore PJ, Mouritsen H, 2016. The radical-pair mechanism of magnetoreception. Annual Review of Biophysics 45:299–344. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-biophys-032116-094545
7. Xu J, Jarocha LE, Zollitsch T, Konowalczyk M, Henbest KB, Richert S, et al., 2021. Magnetic sensitivity of cryptochrome 4 from a migratory songbird. Nature 594:535–540. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03618-9
8. Xu J, Ameerjan ABP, Hungerland J, Langebrake G, Ravnsborg T, Jensen ON, et al., 2025. Cryptochrome 4b protein is probably irrelevant for radical pair-based magnetoreception in the European robin. Journal of the Royal Society Interface 22:20250176. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2025.0176
9. Hore PJ, 2026. A hybrid compass mechanism combining radical pairs and magnetite crystals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 123:e2524093123. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2524093123
10. Tegmark M, 2000. Importance of quantum decoherence in brain processes. Physical Review E 61:4194–4206. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.61.4194

Source quality note: [1], [4], [5] and [6] are reviews; [2], [3], [7] and [8] are original laboratory studies; [9] is a theoretical proposal; [10] is a theoretical calculation whose details are disputed by proponents of quantum-brain models (see our Orch-OR article). The bird-compass evidence comes mainly from isolated proteins and theory, not from a fully demonstrated mechanism in living birds. None of these sources studies human health or Qigong.