THERMODYNAMICS AND LIFE: AN EVOLUTIONARY POINT OF VIEW
Price
Free (open access)
Volume
Volume 3 (2008), Issue 4
Pages
9
Page Range
249 - 258
Paper DOI
10.2495/D&NE-V3-N4-249-258
Copyright
WIT Press
Author(s)
N. MARCHETTINI, E. SIMONCINI & E.B.P. TIEZZI
Abstract
The complexity we observe in life forms, in their development and in biological evolution, is the result of the temporal and spatial constraints of a long evolutionary history made up of relations accumulating in time. This work assumes that space and time belong to different logical types: the first being reversible and conservative and the second irreversible and evolutionary. Time and space are reciprocally irreducible quantities. We refer to the thermodynamics of the Nobel laureate in Chemistry, Ilya Prigogine, to perform a new point of view of life, in terms of evolutionary thermodynamics.
Keywords
Dissipative Structures, Evolution, Information, life origins, Macrostates, Microstates, Tempos