Reality Teaches Us

At birth one may stand at the cross-roads for only a few lal. The adjustments are peremptory. The human mechanism must adjust itself to the new world. If it does,—then life. Sometimes it is necessary to "slap" it. That is "science" giving a first lesson in adjustment. An adequate supply of oxygen for the cells of the body is the first problem man faces when he comes into this world. Every pink pill is not a piece of candy. Science goes to the rescue and re-establishes adjustments. Man tires o...

 Life as the Reduction of Entropy

During the present century a few physicists have tried to define life. Bernal, Schroedinger, and Wigner all came to the same general conclusion, that life is a member of the class of phenomena which are open or continuous systems able to decrease their internal entropy at the expense of substances or free energy taken in from the environment and subsequently rejected in a degraded form. This definition is not only difficult to grasp but is far too general to apply to the specific detection of...