Argonne researchers posit way to locally circumvent Second Law of Thermodynamics

Re:Argonne researchers posit way to locally circumvent Secon... by jrapdx3 on Tuesday November 01, 2016 @03:14PM (#12849185)

A living organism is of course a noble endeavor standing against the tide of entropy. But it can do so only with significant influx of energy extracted from its external environment. The cost of constructing such an elaborate order of matter is paid by disorder elsewhere.

As we know, the living stance can be maintained for only a relatively short time, after which it rapidly decomposes to background entropy.

Interesting to speculate, as living beings we are chock full of "micro-environments", there could be exceptions to the laws of nature as we've understood them that could account for certain mysteries of biological nature.

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Re:Argonne researchers posit way to locally circumvent Secon... by civilian on Wednesday November 02, 2016 @02:14PM (#12857682)

We're not standing against the tide of entropy. If we're going to use a water metaphor, let's talk about a dam or a water wheel. Life is capturing energy and redirecting it-- we're still increasing entropy, but we're directing it in such a way that allows us to have some semblance of order. We aren't trying to resist anything, we dance in the expenditure of entropy.

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Re:Argonne researchers posit way to locally circumvent Secon... by dogma1138 on Wednesday November 02, 2016 @04:01AM (#12852961)

Any living organism is high entropy there are considerably lower entropy states for the molecules that make up your body to hold than the arrangement that makes you, you.

A living organism also increases the entropy of the environment.

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