Lovelock Gets the Second Law of Thermodynamics Wrong
Let us again look at the laws of thermodynamics. It is true that at first sight they read like the notice at the gait of Dante's Hell; but in fact, tough as they are and although like income tax they cannot without penalyt be evaded, they can with forethought be avoided. The Second Law states unequivocally that the entropy of an open system must increase. Since we are all open systems, this means that all of us are doomed to die.
Notes:
He gets this backwards. The Second Law only applies to closed systems. We and our planet are not closed systems, we are open systems; therefore, mortality is not required of us. In fact, the second law states that, so long as we can keep exporting entropy by taking in energy from outside sources, we can live forever.
Folksonomies: physics death life living thermodynamics
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Thermodynamics (0.970406): dbpedia | freebase
Laws of thermodynamics (0.822264): dbpedia | freebase
Entropy (0.816493): dbpedia | freebase
Rudolf Clausius (0.704614): dbpedia | freebase | yago
Temperature (0.700239): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Second law of thermodynamics (0.683344): dbpedia | freebase
Isolated system (0.621392): dbpedia | freebase | yago
Thermodynamic system (0.591024): dbpedia | freebase | yago
Triples
We Can Live Forever
Death is Not a Law of Biology > Contrast > Lovelock Gets the Second Law of Thermodynamics WrongThere is not biological law that says we must die, and since we are open systems, we can potentially live for as long as we can get external energy from somewhere in the Universe.