Physical Law Keeps Life from Starting by Itself
Ilya Prigogine, a Russian-American physical chemist, developed a method for calculating thermodynamic quantities. He published his method in a small volume entitled Introduction to Thermodynamics of Irreversible Processes in 1955. He published the second and third editions in 1961 and 1967. In 1977 Prigogine received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Click the link below entitled "Prigogine's Explanation of His Method" to see the relevant passages from Prigogine’s book. He introduces his method by defining various symbols and presenting several equations. People who are used to mathematical notation may wish to see how Prigogine expressed his ideas.
For those who are not used to mathematical notation, after link Prigogine’s method is explained in words without using mathematical notation.
Click the link below entitled "Prigogine's Explanation of His Method" to see the relevant passages from Prigogine’s book. He introduces his method by defining various symbols and presenting several equations. People who are used to mathematical notation may wish to see how Prigogine expressed his ideas.
For those who are not used to mathematical notation, after link Prigogine’s method is explained in words without using mathematical notation.
Applying Prigogine’s Method to Calculate Thermodynamic Quantities
Irreversible and Reversible Processes: Since Prigogine’s book is about irreversible processes, we need to understand and distinguish between irreversible and reversible processes.
An example of an irreversible process is the one that happens when one puts a drop of ink into a bottle of clear water. Over time the ink diffuses through the water, making it darker in color. This process is not reversible because the dark water will never spontaneously become clear by making a drop of ink pop up out of the water.
An example of a reversible process is one that could happen if one were to drop a perfectly elastic ball on a perfectly hard floor. Under these ideal conditions, the ball will bounce back up to the height from which it was dropped. As the ball falls, it converts the potential energy of gravity into the energy of motion in the downward direction. When it hits the floor, all the energy of motion changes from the downward direction to the upward direction. The ball will rise, more and more slowly, until all the energy of motion is turned back into potential energy when the ball rises to the height from which it was dropped. The ball will go on falling, bouncing, and rising forever. In practice, reversible processes like this never occur, because some of the energy is dissipated as heat when the ball hits the floor; but if the ball is very elastic and the floor is very hard, the ball will rise almost to the height from which it was dropped, and the ball can go on bouncing for a long time.
A Region Where Physical Processes Occur: Let us concentrate our attention on a region in which one or more physical processes are occurring.
The power of Prigogine’s method arises because we can draw an imaginary “bubble” around any part of the region. The bubble around a region is an imaginary closed boundary, not a barrier. It is like the equator, an imaginary line that separates the Earth’s northern hemisphere from the southern hemisphere. There are no barriers or fortifications on the equator because the equator does not coincide with the boundary between any pair of unfriendly countries.
We can draw a bubble or closed boundary around any part of the region. We can then define the “interior” as the part of the region inside the bubble and the “exterior” as the part of the region outside the bubble.
Entropy: An important physical property called entropy develops over time in a region where there is energy and material. The amount of entropy depends on the amount of energy and material in the region. As time passes, the amount of entropy may change.
Entropy is a way of measuring a certain kind of disorder that arises when various physical processes are occurring. Entropy may be heat at a temperature too low to power an engine, disorganization or messiness or dirt in a house, or loss of information because of noise when transmitting a message.
Drawing a bubble lets us separate the total change in entropy into two parts. The internal change in entropy is the part of the change in entropy due to physical processes that occur entirely within the bubble. The external change in entropy is the part of the change in entropy due to physical processes that cause the flow of energy and/or the transport of material from the interior to the exterior of the bubble or from the exterior to the interior of the bubble.
Having made these definitions and having drawn a bubble, we can make some statements that apply to any physical processes that may occur inside or outside the bubble.
The State of Things: Entropy is the state of things in any given place. The state of things cannot flow from one place to another. Things can move and energy can flow from one place to another place, and the movement and flow may alter the state of things in those places, but entropy does not flow.
First, let us look at the physical processes that occur entirely within the bubble, those that involve no flow of energy or transport of material into or out of the bubble. If these processes are not reversible, the change of entropy is always positive; that is, the entropy always increases as time goes on. If the processes are ideal, there will be no change in entropy. However, whether the processes are reversible or irreversible, the change of entropy can never decrease as time goes on.
Second, we can also calculate the change of entropy when the physical processes involve a flow of energy or the transport of material across the bubble, but these calculations are more complicated. We must determine the direction of the flow of energy or the transport of material across the bubble. Let us focus our attention on the total amount of energy that is inside the bubble and call it the internal energy.
If energy flows from outside the bubble to the inside of the bubble, it adds to the internal energy. If energy flows from inside the bubble to the outside of the bubble, it subtracts from the internal energy.
If a lump of material that is hotter than its surroundings is transported out of the bubble, the internal energy is reduced. If a lump of material that is colder than its surroundings is transported out of the bubble, the potential of cooling the surroundings inside the bubble is not realized. This means that the net internal energy is increased.
Calculating Changes in Internal Energy: The above considerations make it possible to calculate changes in the internal energy.
The change in entropy within the bubble is the change in internal energy divided by the temperature if the temperature is measured on an absolute temperature scale. If we measure temperature in degrees Celsius, the absolute temperature is the Celsius temperature plus 273 degrees Celsius. If we measure temperature in degrees Fahrenheit, the absolute temperature is the Fahrenheit temperature plus 459.6 degrees Fahrenheit.
Prigogine’s method applies when physical and/or chemical and/or biological processes are operating. The associated structure in the region may be simple or complex.
A Pond and a Stone: An example of a region involving only physical processes is a still pond in which a stone is dropped. The stone sinks to the bottom of the pond and circular ripples centered on the place where the stone fell in move outward toward the edges of the pond.
An Engine: An example of more complex thermodynamics involving both physical and chemical processes is an engine that consumes oxygen and chemical fuel to drive a piston back and forth to make a flywheel turn.
A Plant: An example of even more complex thermodynamics involving physical, chemical, and biological processes is a green plant that draws water and nutrients from soil through its roots and holds its leaves up to sunlight to make starch and release water and oxygen into the air.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that the operation of physical and/or chemical and/or biological processes in a region always cause the total entropy in the region to increase.
Structure and Information: The pond has a very simple structure; the water fills up the low place in the ground to a certain depth. The structure arises naturally without help from anyone.
An engine has a complex structure that came from the contributions of designers. Rudolf Julius Emanuel Clausius (German mathematical physicist, 1822–1888) originally formulated the Second Law of Thermodynamics to help engineers design more efficient engines. Later Boltzmann found a way to formulate the Second Law that applies to all physical processes. Still later Shannon used Boltzmann’s formulation to apply the Second Law to information theory, the scientific study of the quantification, storage, and transmission of digital information.
Physical processes operating by themselves can never produce entropy that is negative. Negative entropy is information. Intelligent creatures put things in order, clean up messes, design engines, cure diseases, selectively breed new varieties within species, and generate messages that contain information.
A green plant with roots and leaves has a very complex structure that functions because of tiny molecular machines called enzymes. The specifications for the entire structure are written in the DNA code of the plant, with copies of the same code in the nucleus of every cell. The DNA code is digital information stored as a sequence of pairs of nucleic acids.
Intelligence or Random Variation: Was this structure designed by superhuman intelligence, or is it the result of random variation with natural selection of the best variations? In either case, the laws of physics underlie the structure and the chemical reactions that give the plant life, and Prigogine’s method applies at all levels of the structure.
Keeping Entropy Low: Engines have structure and consume fuel. To keep on running, engines must not become too hot to operate and they must not become clogged with ashes. They operate within an exterior region. The matter they bring in from the exterior is the fuel and the oxygen. The matter they expel to the exterior is ashes and smoke. The energy they expel to the exterior is waste heat which has a temperature too low to keep the engine operating. By expelling matter and energy, engines keep their own entropy low at the expense of an increase of entropy in their environment.
Biological systems have structure and consume fuel, oxygen, and sometimes sunlight. To keep on living, they must not become too hot with fever and they must not become clogged with wastes. They also operate within an exterior region, which may be the atmosphere and/or water. The matter they bring in from the exterior is food, water, and oxygen. The oxygen may be gaseous if the biological system lives in the atmosphere, or it may be dissolved in water. The matter they expel to the exterior is solid and/or liquid degraded matter and carbon dioxide. The energy they expel to the exterior is waste heat which has a temperature too low to keep the biological system living. Like engines, biological systems keep their own entropy low at the expense of an increase of entropy in their environment.
Engines keep their own entropy low using a structure that engineers specifically designed for that purpose. Biological systems also keep their own entropy low using their structure. Was the structure of biological systems specifically designed for that purpose? It is possible that future creative designers will make new biological structures that, like all living organisms, keep their own entropy low. Since engineers use their intelligence to design engines, it appears that some great intelligence that existed long before there were human beings designed the existing biological structures.
The Probability of spontaneous assembly of DNA from random action
It is impossible for random action to assemble the DNA of any single-celled, self-replicating living being. People who want proof and are familiar with the mathematical notation that physicists and engineers use to write very large numbers as a number raised to a certain power should click on the link below.
An example of an irreversible process is the one that happens when one puts a drop of ink into a bottle of clear water. Over time the ink diffuses through the water, making it darker in color. This process is not reversible because the dark water will never spontaneously become clear by making a drop of ink pop up out of the water.
An example of a reversible process is one that could happen if one were to drop a perfectly elastic ball on a perfectly hard floor. Under these ideal conditions, the ball will bounce back up to the height from which it was dropped. As the ball falls, it converts the potential energy of gravity into the energy of motion in the downward direction. When it hits the floor, all the energy of motion changes from the downward direction to the upward direction. The ball will rise, more and more slowly, until all the energy of motion is turned back into potential energy when the ball rises to the height from which it was dropped. The ball will go on falling, bouncing, and rising forever. In practice, reversible processes like this never occur, because some of the energy is dissipated as heat when the ball hits the floor; but if the ball is very elastic and the floor is very hard, the ball will rise almost to the height from which it was dropped, and the ball can go on bouncing for a long time.
A Region Where Physical Processes Occur: Let us concentrate our attention on a region in which one or more physical processes are occurring.
The power of Prigogine’s method arises because we can draw an imaginary “bubble” around any part of the region. The bubble around a region is an imaginary closed boundary, not a barrier. It is like the equator, an imaginary line that separates the Earth’s northern hemisphere from the southern hemisphere. There are no barriers or fortifications on the equator because the equator does not coincide with the boundary between any pair of unfriendly countries.
We can draw a bubble or closed boundary around any part of the region. We can then define the “interior” as the part of the region inside the bubble and the “exterior” as the part of the region outside the bubble.
Entropy: An important physical property called entropy develops over time in a region where there is energy and material. The amount of entropy depends on the amount of energy and material in the region. As time passes, the amount of entropy may change.
Entropy is a way of measuring a certain kind of disorder that arises when various physical processes are occurring. Entropy may be heat at a temperature too low to power an engine, disorganization or messiness or dirt in a house, or loss of information because of noise when transmitting a message.
Drawing a bubble lets us separate the total change in entropy into two parts. The internal change in entropy is the part of the change in entropy due to physical processes that occur entirely within the bubble. The external change in entropy is the part of the change in entropy due to physical processes that cause the flow of energy and/or the transport of material from the interior to the exterior of the bubble or from the exterior to the interior of the bubble.
Having made these definitions and having drawn a bubble, we can make some statements that apply to any physical processes that may occur inside or outside the bubble.
The State of Things: Entropy is the state of things in any given place. The state of things cannot flow from one place to another. Things can move and energy can flow from one place to another place, and the movement and flow may alter the state of things in those places, but entropy does not flow.
First, let us look at the physical processes that occur entirely within the bubble, those that involve no flow of energy or transport of material into or out of the bubble. If these processes are not reversible, the change of entropy is always positive; that is, the entropy always increases as time goes on. If the processes are ideal, there will be no change in entropy. However, whether the processes are reversible or irreversible, the change of entropy can never decrease as time goes on.
Second, we can also calculate the change of entropy when the physical processes involve a flow of energy or the transport of material across the bubble, but these calculations are more complicated. We must determine the direction of the flow of energy or the transport of material across the bubble. Let us focus our attention on the total amount of energy that is inside the bubble and call it the internal energy.
If energy flows from outside the bubble to the inside of the bubble, it adds to the internal energy. If energy flows from inside the bubble to the outside of the bubble, it subtracts from the internal energy.
If a lump of material that is hotter than its surroundings is transported out of the bubble, the internal energy is reduced. If a lump of material that is colder than its surroundings is transported out of the bubble, the potential of cooling the surroundings inside the bubble is not realized. This means that the net internal energy is increased.
Calculating Changes in Internal Energy: The above considerations make it possible to calculate changes in the internal energy.
The change in entropy within the bubble is the change in internal energy divided by the temperature if the temperature is measured on an absolute temperature scale. If we measure temperature in degrees Celsius, the absolute temperature is the Celsius temperature plus 273 degrees Celsius. If we measure temperature in degrees Fahrenheit, the absolute temperature is the Fahrenheit temperature plus 459.6 degrees Fahrenheit.
Prigogine’s method applies when physical and/or chemical and/or biological processes are operating. The associated structure in the region may be simple or complex.
A Pond and a Stone: An example of a region involving only physical processes is a still pond in which a stone is dropped. The stone sinks to the bottom of the pond and circular ripples centered on the place where the stone fell in move outward toward the edges of the pond.
An Engine: An example of more complex thermodynamics involving both physical and chemical processes is an engine that consumes oxygen and chemical fuel to drive a piston back and forth to make a flywheel turn.
A Plant: An example of even more complex thermodynamics involving physical, chemical, and biological processes is a green plant that draws water and nutrients from soil through its roots and holds its leaves up to sunlight to make starch and release water and oxygen into the air.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that the operation of physical and/or chemical and/or biological processes in a region always cause the total entropy in the region to increase.
Structure and Information: The pond has a very simple structure; the water fills up the low place in the ground to a certain depth. The structure arises naturally without help from anyone.
An engine has a complex structure that came from the contributions of designers. Rudolf Julius Emanuel Clausius (German mathematical physicist, 1822–1888) originally formulated the Second Law of Thermodynamics to help engineers design more efficient engines. Later Boltzmann found a way to formulate the Second Law that applies to all physical processes. Still later Shannon used Boltzmann’s formulation to apply the Second Law to information theory, the scientific study of the quantification, storage, and transmission of digital information.
Physical processes operating by themselves can never produce entropy that is negative. Negative entropy is information. Intelligent creatures put things in order, clean up messes, design engines, cure diseases, selectively breed new varieties within species, and generate messages that contain information.
A green plant with roots and leaves has a very complex structure that functions because of tiny molecular machines called enzymes. The specifications for the entire structure are written in the DNA code of the plant, with copies of the same code in the nucleus of every cell. The DNA code is digital information stored as a sequence of pairs of nucleic acids.
Intelligence or Random Variation: Was this structure designed by superhuman intelligence, or is it the result of random variation with natural selection of the best variations? In either case, the laws of physics underlie the structure and the chemical reactions that give the plant life, and Prigogine’s method applies at all levels of the structure.
Keeping Entropy Low: Engines have structure and consume fuel. To keep on running, engines must not become too hot to operate and they must not become clogged with ashes. They operate within an exterior region. The matter they bring in from the exterior is the fuel and the oxygen. The matter they expel to the exterior is ashes and smoke. The energy they expel to the exterior is waste heat which has a temperature too low to keep the engine operating. By expelling matter and energy, engines keep their own entropy low at the expense of an increase of entropy in their environment.
Biological systems have structure and consume fuel, oxygen, and sometimes sunlight. To keep on living, they must not become too hot with fever and they must not become clogged with wastes. They also operate within an exterior region, which may be the atmosphere and/or water. The matter they bring in from the exterior is food, water, and oxygen. The oxygen may be gaseous if the biological system lives in the atmosphere, or it may be dissolved in water. The matter they expel to the exterior is solid and/or liquid degraded matter and carbon dioxide. The energy they expel to the exterior is waste heat which has a temperature too low to keep the biological system living. Like engines, biological systems keep their own entropy low at the expense of an increase of entropy in their environment.
Engines keep their own entropy low using a structure that engineers specifically designed for that purpose. Biological systems also keep their own entropy low using their structure. Was the structure of biological systems specifically designed for that purpose? It is possible that future creative designers will make new biological structures that, like all living organisms, keep their own entropy low. Since engineers use their intelligence to design engines, it appears that some great intelligence that existed long before there were human beings designed the existing biological structures.
The Probability of spontaneous assembly of DNA from random action
It is impossible for random action to assemble the DNA of any single-celled, self-replicating living being. People who want proof and are familiar with the mathematical notation that physicists and engineers use to write very large numbers as a number raised to a certain power should click on the link below.
Some people may simply accept the truth of the impossibility of random action assembling the DNA of any single-celled, self-replicating living being. If they do, they may skip the part above entitled “Random action cannot produce living beings” and click the link that says "Reasons for Not Applying Thermodynamics."