How The Life Begin

Notable among quantitative efforts to describe cosmic evolution are  Eric Chaisson 's research efforts to describe the concept of energy flow through open,  thermodynamic  systems, including galaxies, stars, planets, life, and society. The observed increase of  energy rate density (energy/time/mass) among a whole host of complex systems is one useful way to explain the rise of complexity in an  expanding universe  that still obeys the cherished  second law of thermodynamics  and thus continues to accumulate net  entropy . As such, ordered material systems—from buzzing bees and redwood trees to shining stars and thinking beings—are viewed as temporary, local islands of order in a vast, global sea of disorder. A recent review article, which is especially directed toward big historians, summarizes much of this empirical effort over the past decade. One striking finding of such complexity studies is the apparently ranked order a...