Question

Short/Long answer type questions
Define entropy. Discuss its significance to the biological systems.

Answer 1

For several daily phenomena, the notion of entropy offers profound insight into the course of spontaneous change. A hallmark of 19th-century physics is its introduction by the German physicist Rudolf Clausius in 1850.

Complete Answer:
- Entropy, the per unit temperature estimate of the thermal energy of a device that is unavailable for useful work. The amount of entropy is also a measure of the molecular disorder, or randomness, of a system, since work is obtained from ordered molecular motion.
- The degree of a system's randomness or chaos is called its entropy. Any transfer of energy results in the conversion of some energy to an unusable form (such as heat) and, because heat does not function, the randomness of the universe increases.
- The second law of thermodynamics states that during any random phase in an isolated system, entropy, a measure of disorder, increases.
- We can see the whole universe as an independent system, leading to the fact that the universe's entropy appears to be maximal. A highly ordered, low entropy structure is retained by all living organisms, however.
- Life is not a machine that is alone, it is very far from it. Life is a system that is totally free, where all energy and matter flow in and out continuously. Food is processed to provide the cells with energy, to move the muscles, to fix things within our bodies that break down all the time.
- In conclusion, entropy is coped with by a constant input of energy-living species. One consequence of the second thermodynamics law is that it must somehow increase the entropy of the universe in order for a process to happen. The very cell in your body has its own internal organisation; the cells are organised into tissues, and the tissues into organs; and a careful transport, exchange, and trade mechanism is maintained by your entire body that keeps you alive. So it may not be obvious at first glance how you, or even a simple bacterium, may reflect an increase in entropy.

Note: More broadly said, processes that minimise entropy locally, such as those that create and preserve the highly ordered bodies of living things, may also take place. Such local reductions in entropy, however, can only occur with energy expenditure, where some of that energy is converted into heat or other non-useable forms.