Category: thermodynamics
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Entropy and Miscibility Gap: Tutorial for Biologists
Main Points Introduction Recently I have written a small text Schrödinger’s Order, Disorder and Entropy and discussed it on the biosemiotic list. During discussion, there was a suggestion to consider a solution with a miscibility gap. In this case, a homogeneous mixture spontaneously decomposes to two different solutions with different concentrations of components. In this text,…
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Muddle Puddle with Entropy in Biology
One paragraph from J. Scott Turner, Biology’s Second Law: Homeostasis, Purpose, and Desire. In Beyond Mechanism: Putting Life Back Into Biology I should say that the book is good and the chapter actually is also not bad. Yet, this paragraph speaks for itself: p. 192 “At its most general, the disequilibrium that characterizes a living system…
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Prigogine: The new alliance
I. Prigogine and I. Stengers, The new alliance, Scientia 112 (1977) Part One – From Dynamics to Thermodynamics: Physics, the Gradual Opening towards the World of Natural Processes, 319-332. Part Two – An Extended Dynamics: towards a Human Science of Nature, 643-653. I like the beginning of the first part where the problem is formulated…
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Erwin Schrödinger and Negative Entropy
A critique of the metaphor of negative entropy. Entropy as disorder in the 19th century. Schrödinger: Order, disorder and entropy. Discussion: Order and disorder. Understanding chemical reactions.
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Entropy and Information
Critique on using information entropy in thermodynamics.
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Thermodynamics: A Dynamical Systems Approach
A review of Haddad, Chellaboina, Nersesov, Thermodynamics: A Dynamical Systems Approach. An interesting mixture of thermodynamics and system theory.