A generic black box: the type of view used to model systems in thermodynamics. |
“The laws of thermodynamics, we assume, apply to the whole biosphere of life in exactly the same way they apply to machinery and black boxes.”
A depiction of the “black box” approach on Hans Westerhoff and Karel Dam’s 1987 Thermodynamics and Control of Biological Free Energy Transduction, wherein the view different “biological” volumes, from a thermodynamic point of view, as a black box. [9] |
“Curiously, none of the founding fathers of thermodynamics, Watt, Carnot, Joule, Clausius, Gibbs, among others, had an appreciable comprehension of the exact constitution of matter. The relations and results obtained in early classical thermodynamics are independent of the actual nature of the systems studied and are indeed very general. This happy occurrence is the reason we can extrapolate the fundamental concepts of thermodynamics to other modern disciplines.”
“Thermodynamics is unique among physical and chemical descriptions of our surroundings in that it does not rely on a detailed knowledge of any interior structure of the systems to which it pertains but rather treats such systems as ‘black boxes’ whose equilibrium states are determined by the surroundings with which they can coexist and which can be described by a few parameters. This feature assures that the theory holds true when the system is a collection of molecules, or a beaker of water, or a black hole.”
“One of the most powerful aspects of thermodynamics is its ‘black box’ approach to system analysis. It is not necessary to know what takes place inside the box, it is necessary only to watch the box’s boundaries and see what, and how much, crosses them.”