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The Thermodynamic Machinery of Life (Paperback, Softcover reprint of hardcover 1st ed. 2006)
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The Thermodynamic Machinery of Life (Paperback, Softcover reprint of hardcover 1st ed. 2006)
Series: The Frontiers Collection
Expected to ship within 10 - 15 working days
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Thermodynamics was created in the ?rst half of the 19th century as
a theory designed to explain the functioning of heat engines
converting heat into mechanical work. In the course of time, while
the scope of research in this ?eld was being extended to a wider
and wider class of energy transformations, thermodynamics came to
be considered as a general theory of machines identi?ed with energy
transducers. Imp- tant progress in biochemistry in the ?rst half of
the 20th century, and in molecular biology in the second half, made
it possible to think of treating even living organisms as machines,
at least on the subcellular level. However, success in applying
thermodynamics to elucidate the phenomenon of life has been rather
mitigated. Two reasons seem to be responsible for this
unsatisfactory s- uation. Nineteenth century thermodynamics dealt
only with simple (homogeneous) systems in complete equilibrium.
Although during the 20th century a nonequilibrium thermodynamics
was developed, sta- ing with the Onsager theory of linear response
and ending with the Prigogine nonlinear theory of dissipative
structures, these theories still concern the originally homogeneous
systems. Because living organisms are complex systems with a
historically frozen spatial and functional structure, a
thermodynamics of both nonequilibrium and complex s- tems is needed
for their description. The ?rst goal of the present book is to
formulate the foundations of such a thermodynamics.
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