Into the Cool: Energy Flow, Thermodynamics, and Life
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Scientists, theologians, and philosophers have all sought to answer the questions of why we are here and where we are going. Finding this natural basis of life has proved elusive, but in the eloquent and creative Into the Cool, Eric D. Schneider and Dorion Sagan look for answers in a surprising place: the second law of thermodynamics. This second law refers to energy's inevitable tendency to change from being concentrated in one place to becoming spread out over time. In this scientific tour de force, Schneider and Sagan show how the second law is behind evolution, ecology,economics, and even life's origin.
Working from the precept that "nature abhors a gradient," Into the Cool details how complex systems emerge, enlarge, and reproduce in a world tending toward disorder. From hurricanes here to life on other worlds, from human evolution to the systems humans have created, this pervasive pull toward equilibrium governs life at its molecular base and at its peak in the elaborate structures of living complex systems. Schneider and Sagan organize their argument in a highly accessible manner, moving from descriptions of the basic physics behind energy flow to the organization of complex systems to the role of energy in life to the final section, which applies their concept of energy flow to politics, economics, and even human health.
A book that needs to be grappled with by all those who wonder at the organizing principles of existence, Into the Cool will appeal to both humanists and scientists. If Charles Darwin shook the world by showing the common ancestry of all life, so Into the Cool has a similar power to disturb—and delight—by showing the common roots in energy flow of all complex, organized, and naturally functioning systems.
Working from the precept that "nature abhors a gradient," Into the Cool details how complex systems emerge, enlarge, and reproduce in a world tending toward disorder. From hurricanes here to life on other worlds, from human evolution to the systems humans have created, this pervasive pull toward equilibrium governs life at its molecular base and at its peak in the elaborate structures of living complex systems. Schneider and Sagan organize their argument in a highly accessible manner, moving from descriptions of the basic physics behind energy flow to the organization of complex systems to the role of energy in life to the final section, which applies their concept of energy flow to politics, economics, and even human health.
A book that needs to be grappled with by all those who wonder at the organizing principles of existence, Into the Cool will appeal to both humanists and scientists. If Charles Darwin shook the world by showing the common ancestry of all life, so Into the Cool has a similar power to disturb—and delight—by showing the common roots in energy flow of all complex, organized, and naturally functioning systems.
“Whether one is considering the difference between heat and cold or between inflated prices and market values, Schneider and Sagan argue, we can apply insights from thermodynamics and entropy to understand how systems tend toward equilibrium. The result is an impressive work that ranges across disciplinary boundaries and draws from disparate literatures without blinking.”—Publishers Weekly
- ISBN13: 9780226739373
- Condition: New
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Customer Reviews ::
vital topic; apparently purloined insights; obscured [...] - Doctor Richard - Newton,, MA, United States
The current financial crisis makes this book very relevant, since it discusses how an economy resembles a thermodynamic system. The book does not however address the thesis that follows logically, that profit in an economic system is analogous to increasing entropy in a thermodynamic system. [...] offers a paper that teaches enough thermodynamics to argue that this is the case - and explains that increasing entropy is more like waste than like fuel.
I wrote a praising review of this book last May before discovering that these authors seem to have coyly plagiarized the previously published work of Rod Swenson.
I am especially moved to update my review because I have taken from both Swenson and S&S in the monograph available at [...]
S&S say cleverly "nature abhors a gradient", by which they mean that entropy increases wherever possible as efficiently as possible. This seems directly to lift sans acknowledgement the thesis of the "Law of Maximum Production" from Swenson, who uses "potential" instead of "gradient".
Their educative goal is admirable, of course. Economists are not scientifically educated enough even to the level of "physics for poets" to realize that economics is subject to the 2nd law of thermodynamics, just as is the rest of reality. The equilibrium of supply and demand in economics mimics the Newtonian balance of action-and-reaction, which we show is an inadequate model to explain economics. The expanding economy that was driven by value-less, derivative profits sent the system into thermo-economic equilibrium.
The Law of Maximum Entropy Production argues that life exists precisely because it creates entropy most efficiently. One can only note that civilization amplifies human entropy production. Profit's function as entropy and therefore as pollution signals us to understand that we must recycle profit into value, and not leverage profit to make more profit. Our instinctual love of profit is like a death instinct.
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