Our study allowed us to evaluate, to some extent, the utility and versatility of concepts such as entropy to permeate in different areas of science. Then we compare the hierarchical structure which emerges for the different cases of association, which can be in terms of citations among papers, classification of papers in categories or key words in abstracts and titles. First, some well-recognized works which introduced novel entropy-related definitions are monitored. To achieve this, we analyze the Scopus papers database related to entropy research during the last 20 years, collecting 750 K research papers which directly contain or mention the word entropy. This applies to literally every thing (every energy-involving activity or process) from biochemical reactions to electromagnetic radiation too (their particles are termed photons), and so it is a universal principle.Our aim is to illustrate how the thermodynamics-based concept of entropy has spread across different areas of knowledge by analyzing the distribution of papers, citations and the use of words related to entropy in the predefined Scopus categories. You can only minimize this leakage by choosing a system that has the least possible degrees of freedom. He concluded that as long as the motor is made of material that consists of particles there will be leakage of some energy to the particles by means frictional dissipation and you cannot convince the particles not to do so. If your activity involves fancy properties (not so large number of particles but a highly flexible molecules in themselves, hence again higher degrees of freedom) again you have to pay a higher tax.Ĭarnot realized the concept of entropy when he was trying to design a perpetual motor. If your activity involves lots of properties (number of particles or large size of the system, therefore higher degrees of freedom) you have to pay a higher tax ( termed entropic penalty). You have to pay the tax (entropy) for every activity involving energy (money) other wise your activity will not be possible. If any system goes against this, it does so via an outside energy source which has increased the entropy of the universe somewhere else.Īs tax money is no longer available for you payments, entropy is the tax of nature in that it is the energy taken (leaked) from your system, be it supplied or produced, that is no longer available for work. In essence: things are always going towards a low energy state, i.e. So while the ATP synthase molecule is making higher energy molecules (decreasing entropy) it is doing so as H+ naturally flows towards equilibrium, which increases the overall entropy in the universe. It is, but it can only do so by the natural flow of H+ ions which have accumulated on one side of the cell membrane and naturally flow from their high concentration to their low concentration on the other side. This too seems like a system changing molecules from a low energy state to a high energy state. It is creating ATP (Adenine tri-phosphate) molecules from ADP (adenine di-phosphate) and a phosphate group. Think of the ATP Synthase on the cell membrane. Reactions which seem to increase the state of energy, or perhaps the 'order' of the universe, have done so at the expense of another part of the universe, usually through the conversion of energy from molecules such as ATP or NADPH. This becomes important in metabolic reactions. This can also be stated as the fact that the universe naturally falls towards the lowest energy state, or equilibrium. 2nd law of thermodynamics states that the overall entropy of the universe cannot decrease at any time.
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