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The second law of thermodynamics implies a relationship between the net entropy export by the Earth and its internal irreversible entropy production. The application of this constraint for the purpose of understanding Earth's climate is…

Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics · Physics 2022-01-19 Martin S. Singh , Morgan E O'Neill

`Entropy' appears as driving force in many different evolution equations, both deterministic and stochastic, and in these equations this `entropy' also takes different forms. We show how all these examples can be understood as different…

Dynamical Systems · Mathematics 2026-03-10 Mark A. Peletier

Free energy and entropy are examined in detail from the standpoint of classical thermodynamics. The approach is logically based on the fact that thermodynamic work is mediated by thermal energy through the tendency for nonthermal energy to…

Physics Education · Physics 2015-06-26 Clinton D. Stoner

Motivated by a recent article on open problems in artificial life, here I postulate three laws which form a mathematical framework to describe artificial life evolutionary dynamics. They are based on a continuous approximation of population…

Adaptation and Self-Organizing Systems · Physics 2007-05-23 P. Ao

The deep problems caused from the limitations of theoretical framework itself can only be clarified by extending and reconstructing of the theoretical framework, we extend classical theoretical framework of thermodynamics, break through the…

Chemical Physics · Physics 2025-01-17 Tang Suye

The origin of life is often framed primarily as a chemical problem, yet life's defining feature is evolution. Advances in geochemistry, prebiotic chemistry, and molecular biology have produced diverse scenarios for the emergence of genomes,…

The evolution of life has been a big enigma despite rapid advancements in the fields of biochemistry, astrobiology, and astrophysics in recent years. The answer to this puzzle has been as mind-boggling as the riddle relating to evolution of…

General Physics · Physics 2012-01-17 Ashwini Kumar Lal

The backbone of nonequilibrium thermodynamics is the stability structure, where entropy is related to a Lyapunov function of thermodynamic equilibrium. Stability is the background of natural selection: unstable systems are temporary, and…

Physics and Society · Physics 2024-10-01 Peter Ván

The possibility that evolutionary forces -- together with a few fundamental factors such as thermodynamic constraints, specific computational features enabling information processing, and ecological processes -- might constrain the logic of…

Biological Physics · Physics 2025-12-30 Manlio De Domenico

The search for Life in the Universe generally assumes three basic life's needs: I) building block elements (i.e., CHNOPS), II) a solvent to life's reactions (generally, liquid water) and III) a thermodynamic disequilibrium. It is assumed…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2025-08-21 Giovanni Covone , Donato Giovannelli

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…

Populations and Evolution · Quantitative Biology 2025-05-27 Søren Toxvaerd

A major part of the many thermally driven processes in our natural environment as well as in engineering solutions of Carnot-type machinery is based on the second law of thermodynamics (or principle of entropy increase). An interesting link…

General Physics · Physics 2010-09-29 Hans R. Moser

The problem of the rate and mechanisms of biological evolution was considered. It was shown that species could not be formed due to undirected mutations in characteristic times of about one million years. A mechanism of deterministic…

Populations and Evolution · Quantitative Biology 2007-05-23 Alexey V. Melkikh

When thermodynamics is understood as the science (or art) of constructing effective models of natural phenomena by choosing a minimal level of description capable of capturing the essential features of the physical reality of interest, the…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2020-03-31 Gian Paolo Beretta

Since the time of Darwin, scientists have struggled to reconcile the evolution of biological forms in a universe determined by fixed laws. These laws underpin the origin of life, evolution, human culture and technology, as set by the…

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 -…

Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics · Physics 2007-05-23 A. Speranza , V. Lucarini

Traditionally evolution is seen as a process where from a pool of possible variations of a population (e.g. biological species or industrial goods) a few variations get selected which survive and proliferate, whereas the others vanish.…

Populations and Evolution · Quantitative Biology 2008-09-25 Rudolf Hanel , Stefan Thurner

The existence of life is one of the most fundamental problems of astrophysics. The intriguing existence of progressively complex and apparently improbable living beings should be a general tendency of life in the Universe. We are looking…

Biological Physics · Physics 2022-10-12 Francisco Sánchez , Eduardo Battaner

It is argued that human consciousness is likely to have emerged during the self-consistent evolution of the physical universe, through the gradual accumulation of biological entities' ability to tap into the intrinsic non-deterministic…

General Physics · Physics 2011-03-15 Xiaolei Zhang

The observed general time-asymmetric behavior of macroscopic systems -- embodied in the second law of thermodynamics -- arises naturally from time-symmetric microscopic laws due to the great disparity between macro and micro-scales. More…

Condensed Matter · Physics 2007-05-23 Joel L. Lebowitz