Related papers: Why did life emerge?
The origin of life must have been preceded by Darwin-like evolutionary dynamics that could propagate it. How did that adaptive dynamics arise? And from what prebiotic molecules? Using evolutionary invasion analysis, we develop a universal…
Unlike many physical nonequilibrium systems, in biological systems, the coupling to external energy sources is not a fixed parameter but adaptively controlled by the system itself. We do not have theoretical frameworks that allow for such…
This work is focused on the exploration of the thermodynamics foundations of the matter creation scenario when a generalized form of the second law of thermodynamics for this scheme is implemented. In this scenario we consider an expanding…
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…
I use cosmology examples to illustrate that the second law of thermodynamics is not old and tired, but alive and kicking, continuing to stimulate interesting research on really big puzzles. The question "Why is the entropy so low?" (despite…
The quest for life in the Universe is often affected by the free use of extrapolations of our phenomenological geocentric knowledge. We point out that the existence of a living organism, and a population of organisms, requires the existence…
While evolution has inspired algorithmic methods of heuristic optimisation, little has been done in the way of using concepts of computation to advance our understanding of salient aspects of biological phenomena. We argue that under…
A single mechanism, endemic to the standard model of physics, is proposed to explain wavefunction collapse, classical motion, dissipation, equilibration, and the transition from pure quantum mechanics through open system decoherence to the…
Recent theoretical progress in nonequilibrium thermodynamics, linking the physical principle of Maximum Entropy Production ("MEP") to the information-theoretical "MaxEnt" principle of scientific inference, together with conjectures from…
Life is fundamentally a scientific enigma. The interplay between chaos, entropy dynamics, and Prigogine's dissipative systems offers profound insights into the emergence, stabilization, and eventual collapse of far-from-equilibrium systems.…
This paper is a non-technical, informal presentation of our theory of the second law of thermodynamics as a law that is independent of statistical mechanics and that is derivable solely from certain simple assumptions about adiabatic…
Extremal principles are fundamental in our interpretation of phenomena in nature. One of the best known examples is the second law of thermodynamics, governing most physical and chemical systems and stating the continuous increase of…
When a large number of similar entities interact among each other and with their environment at a low scale, unexpected outcomes at higher spatio-temporal scales might spontaneously arise. This nontrivial phenomenon, known as emergence,…
The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of an isolated system can only increase over time. This appears to conflict with the reversible evolution of isolated quantum systems under the Schr\"odinger equation, which preserves…
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,…
A simple and effective approach to thermodynamics is suggested, which solves the major difficulties in the traditional presentation of the subject. The internal energy is introduced from the behavior of deformable bodies, whereas the…
Many of life's most fascinating phenomena emerge from interactions among many elements--many amino acids determine the structure of a single protein, many genes determine the fate of a cell, many neurons are involved in shaping our thoughts…
Thermodynamics is based on the notions of energy and entropy. While energy is the elementary quantity governing physical dynamics, entropy is the fundamental concept in information theory. In this work, starting from first principles, we…
Evolution has fascinated quantitative and physical scientists for decades: how can the random process of mutation, recombination, and duplication of genetic information generate the diversity of life? What determines the rate of evolution?…
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…