Erwin Schrödinger, an Austrian physicist and one of the pioneers of quantum mechanics, made significant contributions to various areas of science, including his exploration of the relationship between physics and biology. The concepts you mentioned, "negentropy" and "free energy," are central to his ideas about how living systems sustain themselves.
- Negentropy (Negative Entropy): Schrödinger introduced the concept of "negentropy" in his famous 1944 book "What is Life?" Entropy is a measure of the amount of disorder or randomness in a system. Schrödinger proposed that living organisms are able to maintain their highly organized structures and processes (low entropy) by actively taking in energy from their environment and using it to counteract the natural tendency toward increased disorder.
In essence, Schrödinger argued that life manages to maintain and increase its complexity and orderliness by importing more order (negentropy) from its surroundings than it loses in the process of its internal operations. This idea contributed to the understanding of how living systems can defy the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the total entropy of an isolated system tends to increase over time.
- Free Energy: Later, Schrödinger's thinking evolved, and he shifted the focus from the concept of negentropy to that of "free energy." Free energy, in this context, refers to the energy available to perform work in a system. In living organisms, free energy is derived from the chemical reactions that take place within cells. These reactions are part of metabolic processes, such as respiration and photosynthesis, which allow organisms to extract energy from their environment and utilize it to sustain their life processes.
By emphasizing the importance of free energy, Schrödinger was highlighting the role of energy transformations within living systems. Organisms must acquire and process energy to maintain their structure, growth, and reproduction. The utilization of free energy helps organisms maintain their ordered state and counteract the tendency toward increasing entropy.
In summary, Schrödinger's ideas about life feeding on negentropy and free energy emphasize the fundamental principles that allow living systems to counteract the natural trend toward disorder and maintain their complex structures and processes. These concepts are part of the broader exploration of the relationship between physics and biology, and they have had a lasting impact on the field of theoretical biology.
