10 replies to this topic

[Logic]

Japanese physicists show how to extract more energy from entangled particles than is possible with classical thermodynamics:

http://www.technolog...assical-law-of/

[Mind]

Cool stuff. Thanks for posting Logic!

[Turnbuckle]

Logic, on 06 August 2012 - 10:38 PM, said:

Japanese physicists show how to extract more energy from entangled particles than is possible with classical thermodynamics:

http://www.technolog...assical-law-of/

They're wrong just like everyone else who has ever tried to beat thermodynamics. The magic here is throwing in entangled particles, which makes it harder to see their error.

[Highlander]

Logic, thanks for  this link!

Good work though...

Oh yeh, life itself also beats thermodynamics (at least it contradicts to main thermodynamic lawfrom obvious point of view) .
But Entanglement may be further conected to phenomena of life/DNA :

"Quantum entanglement between the electron clouds of nucleic acids in DNA"
http://arxiv.org/abs/1006.4053
"Entanglement Swapping Model of DNA Replication"
http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.0073
"Entanglement entropy of a quantum unbinding transition and entropy of DNA"
e tc..

I am sure we know litle about quantum world, its law and life yet...

Edited by Highlander, 08 August 2012 - 10:01 AM.

[Turnbuckle]

Highlander, on 08 August 2012 - 09:59 AM, said:

Oh yeh, life itself also beats thermodynamics (at least it contradicts to main thermodynamic lawfrom obvious point of view) .

Ah, no. If you mean the second law of thermodynamics, it says that the disorder of a closed system always increases, or at best remains the same. You might have living beings within the system where disorder decreases locally, but it's always at the expense of greater disorder of the system. If you could discover some way around the second law you could build a working perpetual motion machine, but no one ever has.

Edited by Turnbuckle, 08 August 2012 - 12:49 PM.

[Highlander]

Thanks. You eliminated some entropy in my head )) I know this answer [I. Prigogine and others]...even if I understand it it is still not obvious especially when we consider how life appears and grows..
For example 2nd law does not explain how self-organisation can be created (can appear) in the system where disorder has to grow...
I mean, if some closed system (let's say- our Earth) tends to disorder (this is what second law of thermodynamics says), so what makes nature to create self-organizing centers/objects?

[niner]

Highlander, on 08 August 2012 - 05:21 PM, said:

For example 2nd law does not explain how self-organisation can be created (can appear) in the system where disorder has to grow...
I mean, if some closed system (let's say- our Earth) tends to disorder (this is what second law of thermodynamics says), so what makes nature to create self-organizing centers/objects?

Some systems will spontaneously self organize because that is the lowest free energy state.  For example, the right sort of detergent in the right concentration in water will spontaneously form micelles.  This at least appears more ordered than a random solution.  (This case is more complicated than it seems, but I'll leave it at that.)  As for life, it eats food, burns it, and harvests energy from those reactions.  That energy is being used to "pay for" a decrease in local entropy, but also consider that the food was converted mostly to CO2 and H2O, which is a lot of disorder.

[rwac]

Highlander, on 08 August 2012 - 05:21 PM, said:

...if some closed system (let's say- our Earth) tends to disorder (this is what second law of thermodynamics says), so what makes nature to create self-organizing centers/objects?

Oh, btw, the Earth is not nearly a closed system. We're constantly getting energy from the Sun.

[Highlander]

rwac, on 08 August 2012 - 06:32 PM, said:

Oh, btw, the Earth is not nearly a closed system. We're constantly getting energy from the Sun.

In some sense all closed systems are philosophical abstraction..
Can our Solar system be considered as closed?)
If yes, please note that we dont get any external energy (from outside of Solar system) to pay for entropy decrease on the Earth!
But still, thermodynamics of live systems is not so obvious, otherwise Schrödinger and others did not study it...
Life has specific property namely "constant entropy reduction or its reversal " - an absolute opposite to what we have in abstractly isolated systems studied by physics...
For example, look at the living cell. Does cell membrane look like Maxwell's demon? I think- yes, because it lets some molecules pass through in one direction, and another ones in the opposite...

Nevertheless, what I was trying to say in my second  post can be formulated as following:
"The second law of thermodynamics applied on the origin of life is a far more complicated issue than the further development of life, since there is no
"standard model" of how the first biological lifeforms emerged; only a number of competing hypotheses. "
[Citation from http://en.wikipedia....tropy_and_life]

Edited by Highlander, 09 August 2012 - 06:37 AM.

[Turnbuckle]

Quote

Can our Solar system be considered as closed?)
If yes, please note that we dont get any external energy (from outside of Solar system) to pay for entropy decrease on the Earth!

The energy to pay for the entropy decrease on the Earth comes from the sun. You can argue with thermodynamics all you want, but it's never been proven to be incorrect. And if you think it works otherwise with living systems, just take an aquarium and fill it with anything you want and close it off completely from the world for years, then take a look.

[Not A Naked Ape]

If I understand the article correctly, the system is not strictly a closed system since the scientists make measurements all the time. In quantum mechanics any measurement influences the system. You can define some sort of entropy for a quantum system that takes measurements, entanglements etc. into account. There should also be a quantum version of the second law of thermodynamic. The scientists have only discovered a violation of the classical law of thermodynamics. The quantum version of the law should still hold.