Recent content by Hip

There is an error in my above calculation: the surface area of Europa is half the value I stated above (the surface area is in fact 3 x 10^7 km2), which means the power received by Europa from tidal heating works out at about 2.5 terawatts.

Thanks for your post, @BillTre. I take your point about the relationship between complexity and entropy not being simple. Perhaps an easier approach to determining the likelihood of life arising in a given planetary environment is examining the energy flux into that environment. Life requires...

If you take the situation where mold is eating nutrients from some substrate containing a uniform distribution of nutrients, then order increases and entropy decreases in that situation.

I would think the oceans themselves would be fairly uniform in their chemical content. Billions of years ago, the moon was 10 times closer to the Earth than it is now, resulting in large tides which would have helped dissolve and distribute minerals from the rocks into the seas. If we assume...

I think it's certainly a good thing to consider and question. But I am not really following your argument, perhaps I am not understanding it. If we consider some primeval puddle where we posit life began, prior to the appearance of life, the atoms and molecules dissolved in that puddle we can...

Certainly. It's generally believed that in order to create life you need a good universal solvent like water, in which atoms and molecular components can dissolve and float around, otherwise there's no mechanism to allow these atoms and molecules to move into contact with each other, in order to...

Hi, I joined this forum to ask a question about the importance of negentropy as a force in origin of life (see this thread). My BSs degree is in mathematics and physics, and I have an MSc in cognitive science. I do not work professionally in science, but like to read popular science books. I am...

Summary: A supply of negentropy into a system is necessary to create states of higher order and complexity. Since the origin and evolution of life involves the creation of ever more complex molecular arrangements of atoms, life could not start without a sufficient supply of negentropy. So when...