Related papers: Evolution and the second law of thermodynamics

The present work shows that the second law of thermodynamics gets naturally satisfied during the entire cosmic evolution of the universe starting from inflation to the late dark energy era, without imposing any exotic condition. This makes…

Biological systems reach organizational complexity that far exceeds the complexity of any known inanimate objects. Biological entities undoubtedly obey the laws of quantum physics and statistical mechanics. However, is modern physics…

We begin with the premise that the law of entropy could prove to be fundamental for the evolution of intelligent life and the advent of technological civilization. Building on recent theoretical results, we combine a modern approach to…

By using very general arguments, we show that the entropy loss conjecture at the glass transition violates the second law of thermodynamics and must be rejected.

We seek here to unify the second law of thermodynamics with the other laws, or at least to put up a law behind the second law of thermodynamics. Assuming no fine tuning, concretely by a random Hamiltonian, we argue just from equations of…

In the Letter [1] (also [2]) there is a claim that the generalised second law of thermodynamics (entropy increase) for black holes provides some limits on the rate of variation of the fundamental constants of nature (electric charge e,…

The question "What is life?" has been asked and studied by the researchers of various fields. Nevertheless, no global theory which unified various aspects of life has been proposed so far. Considering that the physical principle for the…

Firstly, we calculate quantitatively decrease of entropy by the known formulas in the ordering phenomena and nucleation of thermodynamics of microstructure. They show again that a necessary condition of decrease of entropy in isolated…

Every production-recycling iteration accumulates an inevitable proportion of its matter-energy in the environment, lest the production process itself would be a system in perpetual motion, violating the second law of Thermodynamics. Such…

We derive a generalization of the Second Law of Thermodynamics that uses Bayesian updates to explicitly incorporate the effects of a measurement of a system at some point in its evolution. By allowing an experimenter's knowledge to be…

Environmental science almost invariably proposes problems of extreme complexity, typically characterized by strongly nonlinear evolution dynamics. The systems under investigation have many degrees of freedom - which makes them complicated -…

We show that the equations which describe irreversible evolution of a system can be derived from a variational principle. We suggest a Lagrangian, which depends on the properties of the normal and the so-called "mirror-image" system. The…

In this paper, we analyze the relationship between entropy and information in the context of the mixing process of two identical ideal gases. We will argue that entropy has a special information-based feature that is enfolded in the…

The second law of thermodynamics places a limitation into which states a system can evolve into. For systems in contact with a heat bath, it can be combined with the law of energy conservation, and it says that a system can only evolve into…

The second law of nonequilibrium thermodynamics within the open system paradigm (a small system coupled to one or multiple baths) is derived. This is done by showing positivity of entropy production for arbitrary Hamiltonian dynamics for a…

For macroscopic systems, the second law of thermodynamics establishes an inequality between the amount of work performed on a system in contact with a thermal reservoir, and the change in its free energy. For microscopic systems, this…

Living systems maintain or increase local order by working against the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Thermodynamic consistency is restored as they dissipate heat, thereby increasing the net entropy of their environment. Recently introduced…

Expected utility maximization problems in mathematical finance lead to a generalization of the classical definition of entropy. It is demonstrated that a necessary and sufficient condition for the second law of thermodynamics to operate is…

In a previous work (M. Campisi. Stud. Hist. Phil. M. P. 36 (2005) 275-290) we have addressed the mechanical foundations of equilibrium thermodynamics on the basis of the Generalized Helmholtz Theorem. It was found that the volume entropy…

The 2nd law of thermodynamics yields an irreversible increase in entropy until thermal equilibrium is achieved. This irreversible increase is often assumed to require large and complex systems to emerge from the reversible microscopic laws…