Related papers: Evolution and Earth's Entropy
The question of why we age is a fundamental one. It is about who we are, and it also might have critical practical aspects as we try to find ways to age slower. Or to not age at all. Different reasons point at distinct strategies for the…
It is sometimes assumed that the rapidity of biogenesis on Earth suggests that life is common in the Universe. Here we critically examine the assumptions inherent in this if-life-evolved-rapidly-life-must-be-common argument. We use the…
Recent observations suggest that a large fraction of the energy density of the universe has negative pressure. One explanation is vacuum energy density; another is quintessence in the form of a scalar field slowly evolving down a potential.…
The general circulation of the atmosphere determines the long-term variability of weather processes. This circulation is driven by the temperature differences between the poles and the equator, causing air to move along the Earth's surface.…
Conventionally, a habitable planet is one that can support liquid water on its surface. Habitability depends on temperature, which is set by insolation and the greenhouse effect, due mainly to CO2 and water vapor. The CO2 level is increased…
We speculate on some novel consequences possibly associated with a change of elementary particle constants with time. These concern the question as to whether particles reaching the earth from distant parts of the universe reflect their…
In this paper we review various information-theoretic characterizations of the approach to equilibrium in biological systems. The replicator equation, evolutionary game theory, Markov processes and chemical reaction networks all describe…
A vast concourse of events and phenomena occur in nature that may be interrelated by a entropy-maximization technique that provides a comprehensible explanation of a range of physical problems, integrating in a new framework the universal…
The effect caused by the presence of a number of distinct time scales in a simple stochastic model for the Earth's atmosphere temperature fluctuations is studied. The model is described by a dissipative dynamics consisting of a set of…
<PART1> According to the standard LCDM model, the matter and dark energy densities (rho_m and rho_DE) are only comparable for a brief time. We address the cosmic coincidence problem under LCDM and generalized dark energy models by…
We discuss the entropy generation in quantum tunneling of a relativistic particle under the influence of a time varying force with the help of squeezing formalism. It is shown that if one associates classical coarse grained entropy to the…
Nonlinear feedbacks in the Earth System provide mechanisms that can prove very useful in understanding complex dynamics with relatively simple concepts. For example, the temperature and the ice cover of the planet are linked in a positive…
We estimate the entropy associated to a background of squeezed cosmic gravitons, and we argue that the process of cosmological pair production from the vacuum may explain the large amount of entropy of our present universe.
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…
Cosmologists wish to explain how our Universe, in all its complexity, could ever have come about. For that, we assess the number of states in our Universe now. This plays the role of entropy in thermodynamics of the Universe, and reveals…
Rotation and orbital eccentricity both strongly influence planetary climate. Eccentricities can often be measured for exoplanets, but rotation rates are currently difficult or impossible to constrain. Here we examine how the combined…
It has been proposed that galactic cosmic rays may influence the Earth's climate by affecting cloud formation. If changes in cloudiness play a part in climate change, their effect changes sign in Antarctica. Satellite data from the Earth…
Element synthesis which started with p-p chain has resulted in several specific characteristics including lack of any stable isotope having atomic masses 5 or 8. The carbon to oxygen ratio is fixed early by the chain of coincidences. These,…
We argue that the entropy of a black hole is due to the entanglement of matter fields and gravitons across the horizon. While the entanglement entropy of the vacuum is divergent because of UV correlations, we show that low-energy…
The contradiction between physical and economical sciences concerning the growth of the production/consumption mechanism is analyzed. It is then shown that if one wishes to keep the security level stable or to enhance it in a growing…