WIT Press

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