The growth and development of living organisms from the thermodynamic point of view

TL;DR

This paper applies Prigogine's thermodynamic approach to model the growth and development of living organisms as open systems, deriving a thermodynamic equation of growth and analyzing entropy changes across species.

Contribution

It formulates a thermodynamic law of ontogenesis considering internal developmental programs and estimates specific entropy for various species, highlighting evolutionary entropy reduction.

Findings

Specific entropy decreases from yeast to birds.

The thermodynamic model aligns with experimental data.

Growth can be described by a thermodynamic equation.

Abstract

The living organism is considered as an open system, whereas Prigogine's approach to the thermodynamics of such systems is used. The approach allows one to formulate the law of individual growth and development (ontogenesis) of the living organism, whereas it has taken into account that the development and functioning of the system are occurring under the special internal program. The thermodynamic equation of growth is followed a method of estimation of the specific entropy of organism. The theory is compared with experimental data, whereas estimates of the specific entropy of some species were done; it shows a reduction of specific entropy in the evolutionary row: yeast - insects - reptiles - birds.