Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
First Law of
Thermodynamics
Second Law of
Thermodynamics
Fourth Law (?) of
Thermodynamics
Fifth Law (?) of
Thermodynamics
Sixth Law (?) of
Thermodynamics
e
d
Biotic
Processes
c
b
c
Self-Organized
Processes
Biological
Information
(
I
B
)
5
a
Organized
Processes
Abiotic
Processes
4
Chemical
Information
(
I
C
)
Spontaneous
Processes
Physical
Information
(
I
P
)
3
Other-Organized
Processes
Random
Processes
Feasible
Processes
2
Entrop
y
(
S
)
Nonspontaneous
Processes
1
Processes
(Changes)
Energy
(
E
)
Infeasible
Processes
Energy
Information
Fig. 2.2
The five levels of bifurcations of natural processes. Each bifurcation is postulated to be
associated with a fundamental concept (e.g., entropy) and a law (e.g., the Second Law of Thermo-
dynamics) as indicated in the
boxes
above an
arrow
current technology. Based on Definition 2.23, we can infer that physicochemical
systems that involve heat changes are the legitimate domain of thermodynamic
investigations, and such physical chemical systems include everything and every
process in the Universe, from subatomic to cosmological processes. Thus, it may be
concluded that thermodynamics is the most comprehensive of all the natural
sciences developed so far in human history. Since living processes, from enzymic
catalysis (see Sect.
11.3.3
) to physiology of the human body, critically depend on
heat, the scientific study of enzymes and the human body belongs to the domain of
thermodynamics, although traditional thermodynamics has mainly focused on the
study of abiotic systems such as steam engines and refrigerators so that simple
mathematical tools could be applied.
Processes
or changes can be classified into two groups -
feasible
and
infeasible,
depending on whether or not the process under consideration obeys the First Law of
