See main: Free energy of formation

“We have started with atoms and have calculated the absolute changes in entropy when they are combined in simple organic compounds; for instance, graphitic carbon and hydrogen gas combine to form gaseous butane, a decrease in entropy. We have seen that distinguishable rearrangements of the same atoms, isomers, have different entropies (the "snake" and the "spider"). We have seen that the process of polymerization results in entropy decreases whether by adding chains or cross-linking. For instance, polyethylene with a thousand links represents a decrease in entropy of almost 23,000 calories/mole when compare with the necessarily simple ethylene. The possible different arrangements of RNA and DNA molecules are enormous and must represent differences in entropy. The coacervate, protoplasm, and the cell are still more complex organizations of matter and represent further decreases in entropy in their formation. Organisms from cell to homo sapiens represent even further decreases in entropy. A chemical analysis of man has been given as so many gallons of water, calcium enough as hydroxide to whitewash a fence, phosphorous for so many matches and iron enough for a very small bag of nails. What is the difference in entropy between these chemicals and a healthy human being!”

“One of the recognized ways to condition animals to act a certain way is by means of rewards and punishments. With human beings, we should add imaginary rewards and punishments. In the area of reality these can involve hunger, thirst, sleep, rest, peace of mind, happiness, power, hate, love, and so on. The naughty child may be sent to bed without his supper or, if good, rewarded with a cookie; an officer may be promoted or reduced to the ranks; a husband may be given the silent treatment or invited into the connubial bed.

There was the ‘great spirit’, call it by any name, that knew what was going on under the sheets and could read one's innermost thoughts. Then there was the next life for which this one was only a preparation. Since there was an encyclopedia of sins [see: negative confessions, ten commandments, etc.], which could include eating certain food on the wrong day, let alone sins of the flesh, the only hope to gain ‘paradise’ or avoid the ‘inferno’ was to conform to the system whereby these inevitable sins could be forgiven. The power to do this lay in certain members of the society. This seems to be a logical way for societies to survive and prevail against others. For heinous crimes such as believing in some other religious system (or no system), there was the stake the gibbet, Saint Bartholomew's Night and the Crusades.”

“This order could only achieved as the consequence of expending an enormous amount of directed energy. There are other dogmas and doctrines beside those of organized religion. To mention a few, there are The Thoughts of Mao, Mein Kampf the Constitution. But these works were not based on spirits or Valhallas.”

“Another matter of the highest importance in these days is that of money and media (of exchange. In primitive societies exchange of goods, barter, was a method largely used. Sometimes such articles as wampum, seashells, and flints were used. Later more durable materials were used as media of exchange, such silver or gold. But these were scarce substances and often awkward to use.

The acceptance of these pieces of paper as a medium of exchange has occurred only on the basis of the conditioning of human brains for their acceptance. This conditioning process has required the expenditure of directed energy through education and experience. In order to maintain the belief in the value of a dollar bill, extensive and intensive processes must take place. Savings are secured by an agency of the federal government; there are strict laws with severe penalties for such activities as counterfeiting. The right to print is jealously guarded by federal governments.”

“In symordinis [any type of ‘order’ that results from two or more things, animate or inanimate, e.g. lichens-plants, humans-cars, beaver-dam, etc.], we deal with two or more systems or two or more types of systems. A system can be any portion of the universe we wish to define. ‘Although, in principle, one is free in the choice of the limits of a system, that choice sometimes determines whether or not a problem is solvable’ (Fast, 1962). Defining the boundaries of a system is more of a problem in symordinis than in symbiosis since the boundaries of a plant or an animal are usually rather easily determined. Sometimes the boundaries are sharp as in an empty gastropod shell, a honeycomb, an automobile or a satellite; in other cases the boundaries not so sharp, as the hydrosphere, residual soil, or mineral deposit.”

“In a primitive society, an understanding of these [first and second] laws [of thermodynamics] is not important, but in order to understand the operation of a high energy mechanized society these laws are of great importance.”

SR = – 152.63 e.u.

SR = – 3,700,000 e.u.

“The thermodynamics of why societies are organized as they and act as they do, is not at all well known. But we do know that in order to arrive at a certain organization of society, energy is required to condition human minds and these ends, and by energy I mean giga-calories.”

“As the flow of energy through a technological society increases, there are certain tendencies that can be anticipated, one of which is a tendency to increase the population of ‘free energy consuming entities’, such as people, automobiles, electric motors, schools, libraries.”

“Ideas about order and disorder began to germinate in my mind about the end of the 1940s and the beginning of the 1950s. Their origin was in the areas of physics and chemistry—the Carnot cycle, of course, as well as my wanderings through the labyrinth of chemical thermodynamics. It was about this time that the laws and principles of thermodynamics began to be applied on an increasing scale to the geological and biological sciences. My discovery in the 1950s of Shannon’s and Wiener’s development of information theory and its relation to statistical mechanics meant to me that the concept of entropy was much more universal than my formal courses had indicated.”

“The conviction grew that energy and entropy relationships were fundamental not only in understanding processes in physics and chemistry but also in astronomy, geology, and biology. Inevitably this led to the conjecture that further extrapolation would lead to the human sciences and arts, and even to psychology, sociology, history, music, philosophy and religion. Someone, I thought, will bring out the importance of understanding the concepts of order and disorder to all configurations of matter—including man and all of his works. Individuals have applied these concepts within their own specialties; there are articles on information and electronics, entropy in literature, music, and even entropy in religion. But I have waited in vain for someone to show that order and disorder are universal. Most of this essay, and it is an essay—an attempt—was written in the early 1960s. But I am, I believe, a cautious person. I ask myself, who am I to presume myself enough of an eclectic to be able to discuss all of human knowledge?”

“And if I should attempt it, to whom should I address myself? Experts in thermodynamics may discover that my background is elementary; experts in the human sciences and arts may be ‘turned off’ by formulas and technical language, as was pointed out by C.P. Snow in his The Two Cultures. The only conclusion I could arrive at was—if I am going to do this writing, I am going to have to write it to myself.”

“Is the universe running down? Will the highly organized structures of matter and life be transformed at last into a state of inert uniformity? Or will matter and life develop ever more efficient structures capable of making use of the energy of the universe? The author pondering the significance of the laws of thermodynamics, realized that they were applicable (compare: not applicable view) not only to physics and chemistry but to all the natural sciences, and indeed to the whole range of human activity: psychology, history, music, philosophy and religion. Now, in this incisive and wide-ranging study, he shows how an understanding of the laws of thermodynamics in all their ramifications may enable man to organize his future and control the destiny of life in accordance with the fundamental principles that govern the universe.”

“In this incisive, wide-ranging study, Dolloff examines the nature and tendencies of matter and energy. He establishes the applicability of the laws of thermodynamics and their ramifications to the natural sciences and to the entire range of human activity. Indeed, he holds that it may be an understanding of these laws and their ramifications that enables man to reckon successfully with the universe in times ahead. Dolloff examines the concepts of entropy (disorder) and ordiny (order), and compares them to the concepts of chaos and order in society, drawing interesting parallels and pointing up the significance of these. In a penetrating survey of the entire scope of knowledge and activity, he considers the sciences generally and applies his findings to man's immediate problems now. For instance, he examines how society is organized, how energy sources are utilized in our industrial world, and how man's capacities may be developed. For Dolloff, life is not a miracle; it is an integral part of the master plan of the universe. He propounds and substantiates this view very ably in his book.”

Dolloff’s fish tank Carnot engine model (figure 1.3), which titles as “Flow of Heat and Entropy Changes in an Open System in a Steady State”, where: Q is heat, T1 is a large high temperature reservoir, T2 is a large low temperature reservoir, S1 and S2 are the entropies passing into and out of the system, respectively, W is water, G is a hydroelectric generator, A is algae, F is fish, and L is a light bulb. [1]

“Perhaps a model could be made something like earth by following monochromatic ultraviolet light through a one-way window into a container. A careful adjustment of the contents of the container (fish, plants, air, etc.) might enable the system to approach a steady state. If the container were suspended in a vacuum and if its internal energy were free to radiate out by means of another one-way window, an analysis could be made of the radiation spectrum form the window. It would be predicted that the frequencies of the radiation energy would be less than the incoming monochromatic ultraviolet radiation and that the frequencies would be several.

This model is roughly that of the planets, and the earth in particular. Sun is the hot reservoir and its energy is composed of all the electromagnetic frequencies and variable intensities coming from it and intercepted by earth. The cold reservoir is space into which earth radiates its frequencies and particular spectral intensities. In the astronomical case, the heat is not transferred by conduction and convection but by radiation.

The lower temperature of the cold reservoir (heat sink) has its counterpart in the fact that earth’s radiation consists as a whole of lower frequencies (e.g. infrared) than those of sun (e.g. ultraviolet).

It is possible that some frequencies can be emitted that are greater than that of incoming radiation. For instance by thermos-luminescence low-grade radiation is capable of producing visible light. But the overall result in each case must be an increase in the total entropy.”

“Perhaps we will never have quantitative data on the negative entropy of formation of a particular DNA molecule from its elemental building blocks such as the amino acids. Even more involved would be the entropy of formation of a living cell such as a protozoan. There appears to be no limit to the decrease in entropy of formation of organisms. Perhaps the entropy of formation of a living, functioning human brain may be the most ordinic [negentropic] system that has occurred on this planet.”

— Norman Dolloff (1975), Heat Death and the Phoenix (pg. 58)

“The Gibbs free energy is the driving force of chemical reactions and a quantitative value of it can be used to predict the tendency for a chemical reaction to go to products.”

— Norman Dolloff (1975), Heat Death and the Phoenix (pgs. 64-65)

“The Gibbs free energy includes the energy within the system that is available for work and the work capable of being done by the system on its surroundings. With a chemical reaction, the difference in free energy between the products and the reactants gives a measure of the driving force.”

— Norman Dolloff (1975), Heat Death and the Phoenix (pg. 65)

“Man, by releasing Gibbs free energy of fossil fuels, has increase the production of entropy. But that is not his aim. His aim is to direct that energy into producing ordinic events. He directs available energy even though it eventually becomes random energy.”

— Norman Dolloff (1975), Heat Death and the Phoenix (pg. 72)

“When did life begin? We can say that a certain complex protein is not alive, that a synthetic coacervate made of gelatin, gum arabic and ribonucleic acid is not alive. We may say that a particular specimen of protoplasm is alive. The inference of a large number of such choices may be that things are either alive or not alive. A certain animal may be said to be biologically dead. But is the system all dead? When it is seething with maggots? Man, due to the relative simplicity of his cerebration, likes pigeonholes. This organization of information is like the old game of picking the petals off daisies: ‘She loves me, She loves me not.’ ‘It is, it isn't.’ This technique has gotten man a long way, perhaps as a first approximation, but that is not the way things are. His thinking often seems to be like a computer operating on a two-digit system. With education, he learns to think in straight-line relationships: a varies as b. Some people learn to think in terms of logarithms: a varies as a power of b. Many natural phenomena vary logarithmically. But let us recognize our short-comings. If we could have observed the entire evolutionary process from simple molecule to mammal, it is doubtful if we could have logically made the statement, ‘Now, just now, the first living thing exists’.”

Dolloff's 1975 Heat Death and the Phoenix: Entropy, Order, and the Future of Man; the bottom caption reads: an incisive and timely application of the principles of physical science to the problems of humanity.

Ordiny ≡ negentropy

An entropy piper, an extra-labeled variant of the version shown on the cover of Harold Morowitz’ 1992 book Entropy and the Magic Flute, showing various entropy formulations, something Dolloff seems to have succumb to, him thinking of Shannon-Weiner entropy as an magical “open sesame” to the sciences of man, thereby allowing him to take a musical ride on the Shannon bandwagon.

“A DNA molecule has been compared to a message. Four amino acids are attached on the DNA double spiral in various combinations, hence the similarity with a message. The complex molecules are too involved for chemical thermodynamics but are amenable to interpretation through information entropy.”

“The Shannon-Wiener information entropy that is related to the thermodynamic entropy may be the ‘open sesame’ to the sciences of man.”

“‘Man conforms to the laws of the earth. Earth conforms to the laws of the universe. The universe conforms to the laws of tao. Tao follows itself’ (Laozi, 600BC). The universe, as far as we know, conforms to the laws of thermodynamics, so perhaps thermodynamics in its larger sense might be considered as the tao. The laws apply to all energy and matter in the universe, at least as far as we know (perhaps excepting quasars and black holes).”

— Norman Dolloff (1975), Heat Death and the Phoenix (pg. xii)

“Hutton [James Hutton] and his disciples were able to remove the assumption that six thousand years was the age of this planet. This relaxation gave Darwin the lever to pry biology loose from religion.”

— Norman Dolloff (1975), Heat Death and the Phoenix (pg. xiv)

“Organisms are much more complicated than minerals. We know the free energy of formation and the entropy of quartz, but the value of the same parameter in a cell is unknown.”

— Norman Dolloff (1975), Heat Death and the Phoenix (pg. xv)

“One of the difficulties with the concept of entropy is the fact that the senses have difficulty in detecting or measuring it. We can feel the difference between hot and cold, long and short, big and little, fast and slow, heavy and light, but there are no spontaneous sense perceptions to judge quantitative variations in entropy.”

— Norman Dolloff (1975), Heat Death and the Phoenix (pg. 6)

“The principle difference between carbon on a chimney sweep’s face and a diamond in a queen’s tiara is a matter involving entropy; so is the family kitchen before and just after a party, gold scattered in a stream gravel and at Fort Knox, tubes of paint and a Mona Lisa, ten pounds of chemicals and an equivalent cat.”

— Norman Dolloff (1975), Heat Death and the Phoenix (pgs. 6-7)

“A crystallizing substance [approaching absolute zero] is something like military order. A group of soldiers hear the commands, ‘fall in! Dress right, dress! Present arms!’ A command increase the amount of order. Every rifle is at the vertical, a deviation receives a reprimand. Even eyeballs are directed straight ahead. Respiration, circulation and peristalsis go on but we are not at 0° Kelvin! [Similarly] if one gram of water freezes, ΔS is –80/273 e.u.”

— Norman Dolloff (1975), Heat Death and the Phoenix (pgs. 6, 13)

“We melt a substance. Similarly upon the command ‘Fall out!’ the company becomes ‘entropized’. This one lights a cigarette, that one scratches an intolerable itch, they walk off in different directions. ‘Entropy’ increases. [Likewise] the latent heat of melting ice is 80 calories per gram. If just enough heat is added to melt one gram of ice not to raise it temperature above 273° K and if the heat is used only for that purpose, then the change in entropy ΔS is +80/273 e.u. per gram.”

— Norman Dolloff (1975), Heat Death and the Phoenix (pgs. 5-6, 13)

A substance like glass if cooled to 0°K would not have an entropy of zero because it is a supercooled liquid and the particles are anything but organized. An analogy would be a game that is played where people are moving around or dancing and the leader cries ‘Freeze!’ The disorder of the moment must be maintained … even anatomical balance may be precarious.”

— Norman Dolloff (1975), Heat Death and the Phoenix (pgs. 13-14)