I don't think it's tangential at all. Given that life itself is made possible only by utilizing energy to (locally) defy the thermodynamic tendency to maximize entropy, it should not be surprising that there are many microscopic and macroscopic examples of local increases in concentration due to life processes. We can even think of examples on the large scale: imagine people milling about outside in a large field, rain clouds come, people will concentrate themselves inside due to the energetic payoff of staying dry. Grazing animals concentrate themselves into herds when predators are present due to the payoff of increased change of survival. We may even look to sociological principles: societies self-segregating themselves into neighborhoods based on wealth, race, religion, etc. It may seem silly to think of these things as examples of thermodynamic principles in action, but looked at analytically, they typify how living systems can run counter to the entropic tendency toward maximum mixing and maximum decrease of concentration for some energetic benefit. The processes appear to happen naturally without little conscious thought on the part of the participating organisms. Less abstract examples also occur in our technology: every house that runs an air conditioner or refrigerator is using energy to run a "reverse diffusion machine". In this case the diffusing "substance" is heat rather than matter, but the principles are the same all the way down to the equations used to describe it.
(As a matter of fact, versions of the diffusion equation and related thermodynamic/entropy principles have been used to successfully model everything from mass transfer, heat transfer, currency flow, information exchange, sociological change, and so on. Thermodynamics truly is everywhere. Seriously, next time you're on a train or bus or theater, watch how strangers naturally spread out to fill the available space, whereas family members sit together. Have you ever considered the thermodynamics of why they do that? In my view, it's remarkable how large ensembles of particles behave in ways that might be predicted by the laws of statistical mechanics, whether those particles are atoms or people. It makes me question the authenticity of choice. Is free will real or just an illusion deriving from the fact that when you are part of the system, it's hard to see the system at large. Your choice may be the product of conscious thought, but does it matter if the behavior of the system of which you are part is predetermined? Even if you consciously chose the seat you chose, is the choice meaningful if the aggregate of all choices by all people is easily predicted by a statistical bell curve modeled by a basic law of thermodynamics? Put another way, if you had not chosen the seat you chose, someone else would have, and the system would be unchanged. Hmmm. Well, I guess that's a philosophical question for you all
.)
ChemBuddy | 
Chem Reddit | 
Topic: Reverse Diffusion Demonstration (Read 10708 times)