Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
Normal
It is not always adviceable to think of entropy as disorder. More accurately, it is a state or tendency towards thermal homegeneity. In an isothermic, isotropic system, (closed) system, entropy acts to distribute heat homogeneously everywhere. Consequently, it is irreversible. Within such a system, complex molecules such as dna cannot hope to form.However, an ideally closed thermodynamic system is very hard to come by. Even in a laboratory setting, it is impossible to isolate a system from the environment. Heat will eventually seep in or dissipate. Living orgnasims therefore, are considered as open thermodynamic system. It is precisely this that living organisms take in free energy from the environment and use it to form complexity within itself. This free energy comes from the sun, to plants (by photosynthesis) to animals of ever growing complexity.But, when one considers the genesis of the solar system, and how thermally inhomogenuous it is, an entropic model would suggest that the heat energy came from somewhere else. The thing is, it did not. It came from the compressive action of gravity. Which is why I somewhat agree with invest in this regard. Not only does the variety of life on the planet thrive to ever greater complexity, it is apparently isolated on this planet.
It is not always adviceable to think of entropy as disorder. More accurately, it is a state or tendency towards thermal homegeneity. In an isothermic, isotropic system, (closed) system, entropy acts to distribute heat homogeneously everywhere. Consequently, it is irreversible. Within such a system, complex molecules such as dna cannot hope to form.
However, an ideally closed thermodynamic system is very hard to come by. Even in a laboratory setting, it is impossible to isolate a system from the environment. Heat will eventually seep in or dissipate. Living orgnasims therefore, are considered as open thermodynamic system. It is precisely this that living organisms take in free energy from the environment and use it to form complexity within itself. This free energy comes from the sun, to plants (by photosynthesis) to animals of ever growing complexity.
But, when one considers the genesis of the solar system, and how thermally inhomogenuous it is, an entropic model would suggest that the heat energy came from somewhere else. The thing is, it did not. It came from the compressive action of gravity. Which is why I somewhat agree with invest in this regard. Not only does the variety of life on the planet thrive to ever greater complexity, it is apparently isolated on this planet.