Related papers: Thermodynamic Function of Life
Entropy is a very useful concept from physics that tries to explain how a system behaves from a point of view of the thermodynamics. However, there are two ways to explain entropy, and it depends on if we are studying a microsystem or a…
Living systems are thermodynamically open but closed in their organization. In other words, even though their material components turn over constantly, a material-independent property persists, which we call organization. Moreover,…
Natural resource use and waste production, disposal, and reuse in human economies are treated in their economic, technological and thermodynamic aspects. The physical nature of economic production, consumption, saving, and waste is compared…
Given the evolution of an arbitrary open quantum system, we formulate a general and unambiguous method to separate the internal energy change of the system into an entropy-related contribution and a part causing no entropy change,…
After Earth's origin, our host star, the Sun, was shining 20 to 25 percent less brightly than today. Without greenhouse-like conditions to warm the atmosphere, our early planet would have been an ice ball and life may never have evolved.…
The Hadean, once thought to be uninhabitable and tumultuous, has more recently been recontextualized as a clement time in which oceans, land, and life likely appeared on Earth. This non-exhaustive chapter follows multiple threads from…
This paper aims to justify the concept of natural intelligence, the type of intelligence wider than human intelligence and its derivative, AI. I will argue that the process of life is a cognitive process and that organisms, from bacteria to…
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…
Nature's many varied complex systems (including galaxies, stars, planets, life, and society) are islands of order within the increasingly disordered universe. All organized systems are subject to physical, biological or cultural evolution,…
Recent research has extended methods from the fields of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics into other disciplines. Most notably, one recent work creates a unified theoretical framework to understand evolutionary biology, machine…
It has been proposed that, since the origin of life and the ensuing evolution of biological species, a second evolutionary process has appeared on our planet. It is the evolution of culture-e.g., ideas, beliefs, and artifacts. Does culture…
The emergence of life from inanimate matter presents a thermodynamic challenge: the Second Law of Thermodynamics dictates a global trend towards disorder, yet life constitutes localized pockets of profound organization. This paper presents…
The Earth's N2-dominated atmosphere is a very special feature. Firstly, N2 as main gas is unique on the terrestrial planets in the inner solar system and gives a hint for tectonic activity. Studying the origins of atmospheric nitrogen and…
Synchronously orbiting, tidally-locked exoplanets with a dayside facing their star and a permanently dark nightside orbiting dim stars are prime candidates for habitability. Simulations of these planets often show the potential to maintain…
The origin of life is often approached through the lens of replication, heredity, or molecular specificity. This paper proposes a thermodynamic framework in which the emergence of life is driven by the persistence of reaction pathways that…
This paper discusses the benefits of describing the world as information, especially in the study of the evolution of life and cognition. Traditional studies encounter problems because it is difficult to describe life and cognition in terms…
An environment far from equilibrium is thought to be a necessary condition for the origin and persistence of life. In this context we report open-flow simulations of a non-enzymic proto-metabolic system, in which hydrogen peroxide acts both…
Through in-depth thinking and reasoning about the conditions required for cells to maintain unchanged material distribution, it is concluded that life metabolic reactions require high information content. However, the self-replication of a…
Habitability is usually defined as the requirement for a terrestrial planet's atmosphere to sustain liquid water. This definition can be complemented by the dynamical requirement that other planets in the system do not gravitationally…
Living organisms have some common structures, chemical reactions and molecular structures. The organisms consist of cells with cell division, they have homochirality of protein and carbohydrate units, and metabolism, and genetics, and they…