> http://www.fes.uwaterloo.ca/u/jjkay/pubs/sch/sch.html
> This URL seems bad.
funny what a difference 18 hours can make in web space...
the article is cached here at Google:
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.fes.uwaterloo.ca/u/jjkay/pubs/sch/sch.html+Schrodinger++negative+entropy+&hl=en
but perhaps the original link will resurface soon.
for understanding of photosynthesis, energy and thermodynamics, see
also:
http://www.physics.uq.edu.au:8001/ph128/8f.html
http://www-plb.ucdavis.edu/courses/f98/bis1a/Photosyn.htm
upshot is that the term "negative entropy" is misleading a lot of
people. sunlight carries positive energy and entropy to earth's
surface (Planck, early last century ***). re-radiated at infrared
temperatures means more entropy is wicked away from the earth. which
means that the process of absorption and re-emission is itself an
irreversible, entropy-generating mechanism. in terms of
photosynthesis, for example, the solar energy causes reactions which
ultimately shed reaction by-products which can carry entropy with
them, leaving higher energy (lower entropy) molecular bonds in its
wake. so negative entropy" really refers to a process by which high
quality sunlight drives a complex set of reactions forward, shedding
entropy through thermal and mass transport to leave high quality
energy structures behind. This driven shedding of entropy can be
thought of loosely as negative entropy.
les schaffer
*** Planck derived the formula
S = 4/3 * Q / T
where S is the flux of entropy, Q is the energy transported as
radiation (infrared heat) and T is the surface of the emitter.
Since in rough thermal equilibrium the earth must shed that same Q in
order to stay at approx the same temperature, and since the
temperature of the earths surface is a lot ahem cooler than that of
the sun's, the net entropy flux to the earth is negative, indicating
that the absorption of high energy photons and subsequent release of
many times more low energy photons is positive entropy generating
mechanism.
crudely speaking you can think of a game of pool. the balls are all
racked together and a high speed breaker ball hits the rack. the
result is the same energy but spread out over many more modes of
energy transport, hence higher entropy.
high speed breaker ball (imagine a couple of them colliding into the
rack from different directions) represents a few high energy photons
from sun. scattered slower moving balls after impact are re-radiation
in the infrared.
crudely speaking, that is.
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