Entropy and life.

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Namaste!

The concept of entropy holds a very important place in physics which was defined by the German scientist Rudolf Clausius. According to the principle of thermodynamics, entropy of an isolated system never decreases with time, that is, it keeps on increasing. When a glass tumbler is thrown on the ground, it breaks into pieces, but it will never happen that we keep the pieces of glass together and it becomes a whole glass tumbler. This is because of entropy. Overall, it can be said that this is the tendency of dispersal of energy. Our universe is so vast that it also becomes an isolated system. That is, the entropy of our world is continuously increasing with time. This means that with the passage of time, chaos will increase in the world. But it is surprising that even after this chaotic state, there is a lot of order in this world. Even after the continuous increase of entropy, there are super clusters in which there are countless clusters of galaxies. A cluster is formed by the merger of many galaxies and there are billions of stars in a galaxy. They all have a certain shape and a system is visible everywhere. Within such galaxies, there are very organized structures like our solar system where there will be planets like Earth in which life will be flourishing.


(Pixabay.com)

There must be a lot of favorable coincidences happening at once for life to exist on a planet. Let's take a planet like Earth. Earth is a solid rocky planet that is neither too far nor too close to its star. That's why the temperature here remains favorable for life. Then the gravity of the earth is neither so low that the atmosphere here cannot survive, nor is it so much that life cannot flourish due to the terrible atmospheric pressure. Then there are carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and other elements which are necessary for formation of complex molecules. So to protect life from external bodies, there are planets like Jupiter, Saturn outside the solar system which divert their direction when they come towards earth. Moon is a satellite which is helpful in maintaining the flow of life by generating tides in the oceans. Apart from this, there are numerous reasons due to which life flourished and flourishing here. Overall, it means to say that even after entropy, life has been possible and is flourishing. So, what is the reason that even after entropy there are so many organized systems in the universe?

The most systematic is the DNA which is the basis of life. It had no possibility of formation. After all, how did the combination of chemicals create such a complex system that made life possible? But even DNA alone can do nothing without a proper cell structure. Virus contains DNA or RNA but for its growth it also has to enter some living cell. In this way, DNA could not be formed alone, but it was necessary to have other components of the cell like cytoplasm, ribosomes, etc. along with it. How cell was formed even after the existence of entropy?

The fact is that an orderly system increases entropy more than a disordered system. A multicellular organism is more complex than a unicellular organism and helps to increase entropy more than before. The more organized the system becomes, the more energy it produces and consumes, and the more it helps to dissipate energy. For example, if the hydrogen atoms in the universe were far away from each other, then the interaction between them would have been very less and the gravitational force between them would be zero. On the other hand, when they aggregate into stars, the energy is spread out more and more and the entropy increases profoundly. Similarly can be said about life as well. Dinosaurs were large animals, but they could not use as much energy as the average primitive human. A medieval man used more energy than a primitive man and the modern man uses more than anything in the history of the earth. Thus the more technologically capable we are, the more energy we need and the more entropy increases. With the development of human civilization, life has become more and more complex. There are so many rules, laws, dialects, cultures, customs, and information out there today that it is almost impossible to keep track of them all. Due to human civilization, the entropy of the earth has increased a lot. This is just the beginning. One day humans or later evolved creatures will be able to destroy the stars and getting energy from them. Thus the entropy will increase continuously. So can we say that entropy is responsible for life to exist, evolve, and becoming more and more complex?

What do you think about it?



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2 comments
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Upvoted and followed bhai, thank you for the great post. Life revolves around creation, maintenance and destruction, known to be ruled by Brahma, Vishnu and Shive in the Veda. Creation will lead to destruction and then creation again in endless cycles apparently.

Best wishes from the south coast of Africa.

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