https://doi.org/10.4081/mem.1999.794
Negentropy (decreasing entropy): the Beginning of Life according to the laws of Physics.
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
Authors
The "physical" point of view, regarding the beginning of life, is explained just referring to very simple concepts like Heat, Work, Energy, Irreversibility and Entropy: this is done, of course, without using any mathematical formula, but merely discussing things in a plain, simple language.
Basically, when a sperm and an ovum merge, a silent (but dramatic) change takes place: by means of such a lilliputian "marriage" both of them, otherwise bound to die in few hours, manage to reverse the normal, universal Entropy growth (established by the Second Principle of Thermodynamics) triggering a sort of chain reaction which turns billions of cahotic molecules into a perfectly organized body.
Additional considerations are also reported: first of all, Irreversibility is correlated to Probability and the famous issue regarding the Direction of Time; secondly, the DNA information (the Project) is shown being the only thing actually "surviving" from the initial agglomerate of atoms which the first cell was made of; finally, evaluating human growth (from conception through birth) in terms of Percent-per-Day clearly shows how the very first stage of life turns out to be the most significant of all.
As a matter of fact, even Physics (seemingly so far from Life and Death issues) can represent a clear "voice" backing who, from the mother's womb, is not yet capable of making himself heard: it is another small contribution to the vast mosaic of opinions, considerations, and irrefutable facts that strongly support human life from the very beginning.
How to Cite
PAGEPress has chosen to apply the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0) to all manuscripts to be published.
An Open Access Publication is one that meets the following two conditions:
- the author(s) and copyright holder(s) grant(s) to all users a free, irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship, as well as the right to make small numbers of printed copies for their personal use.
- a complete version of the work and all supplemental materials, including a copy of the permission as stated above, in a suitable standard electronic format is deposited immediately upon initial publication in at least one online repository that is supported by an academic institution, scholarly society, government agency, or other well-established organization that seeks to enable open access, unrestricted distribution, interoperability, and long-term archiving.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.