Every element-based "thing" on surface of the earth, whether a baby or a boron atom, has a quantifiable free energy of formation, which is the Gibbs function measure of the energy and entropy changes that resulted during the formation or synthesis of the thing in question. |
“Values obtained for the increase in free energy, at 25°C, in the formation of a substance (at unit activity) form the elements in their standard reference states.”
“How can we compute or even evaluate the entropy of a living being? In order to compute the entropy of a system, it is necessary to be able to create or to destroy it in a reversible way. We can think of no reversible process by which a living organism can be created or killed: both birth and death are irreversible processes. There is absolutely no way to define the change of entropy that takes place in an organism at the moment of death.”
“To apply thermodynamics to the problem of how life got started, we must ask what net energy and entropy changes would have been if simple chemical substances, present when the earth was young, were converted into living matter [as in the formation of a mouse] … to answer this question [for each process], we must determine the energies and entropies of everything in the initial state and final state.”
Image of a magician making a rabbit synthetically appear on a table via the power of Gibbs energy (Schroeder, 2000). [6] |
“To create a rabbit [or human] out of nothing and place it on the table, the magician need not summon up the entire enthalpy, H = U + PV. Some energy, equal to TS, can flow in spontaneously as heat; the magician must provide only the difference, G = H – TS, as work.”