![]() ![]() Schrödinger has pointed out that the organism acquires negative entropy by assimilating food, but he has not considered how the food restores the demon. In this analysis, he shows that the increase in entropy of the demon by accepting the light quantum is greater than the decrease in entropy by acquiring the information about the molecule, and concludes that the demon ultimately dies by the repetition of such operation. Life is an exception to the second law, and a new principle of life will have to explain conditions contrary to the second law.Īccording to the suggestion by Szilard, Brillouin has then analysed the operation of Maxwell’s demon that at least one quantum of light emitted from electric torch is scattered by a molecule and is absorbed in the eye of the demon. 3) The principles of thermodynamics, especially the second law, apply only to inert objects. We admit that life obeys all the laws of physics and chemistry at present known to us, but we definitely feel that something more is needed before we can understand life. ![]() 2) We know a great deal about physics and chemistry, but it is presumptuous to pretend that we know all about them. 1) Our present knowledge of physics and chemistry is practically complete, and these physical and chemical laws will soon enable us to explain life. In 1949, Brillouin has summarized different opinions of life among physicists, chemists and biologists into the following three groups. For example, Szilard suggests that the demon actually transforms “information” into “negative entropy”. This question has been discussed by many physicists. When the first and second laws of thermodynamics have been established, Maxwell has raised the question about the compatibility of life with the second law in terms of a sorting demon. The present theoretical approach can be not only extended to the multicellular diploid eukaryotes but also applied to explain the origin of genes in the self-reproducing proto-cells formed anciently. This evolutionary process to expand the repertoire of genes is mathematically formulated by solving the equation of replicator dynamics up to the higher order of mutation terms. Moreover, the mutants having experienced gene duplication first decline to the minor members in the population but some of the descendants recover as a new style of organisms by generating new gene(s) from the counterpart of duplicated genes. Throughout this evolution, the nucleotide bases in genes are converged to the special arrangement exhibiting the optimal increase rate of the organism. When the mutation term is restricted to the point mutation mainly due to the nucleotide base changes in genes, this equation automatically leads to Darwinian evolution that the mutant with the higher increase rate is selected to become prevailing in the population. The equation of replicator dynamics consisting of self-reproducing rate, death rate and mutation terms contains all known types of evolution of unicellular organisms. This quantity gives a measure that the entropy production arising from the difference between acquired energy and stored energy compensates for the negative entropy of systematizing the organism, and is considered to be proportional to the self-reproducing rate of the organism as the first approximation. ![]() For this purpose, a new thermodynamic quantity of biological activity is introduced to represent the molecular events in an organism recently revealed by molecular biology. In the present paper, the self-reproduction, which is characteristic of the organism, is shown to be essential in resolving the paradox of Maxwell’s demon. Life has been a mystery for most physicists since the question of Maxwell’s demon. ![]()
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