Does Life Need Water or Can It Be Generated by Other Fluids?

Piero Chiarelli

National Council of Research of Italy, Area of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.

DOI: 10.4236/ojbiphy.2014.41005                

Abstract

In the present work the Stochastic generalization of the quantum hydrodynamic analogy (SQHA) is used to obtain the far-from-equilibrium kinetics for a real gas and its fluid phase. In gases and their liquids, interacting by Lennard-Jones potentials whose mean distance is bigger than the quantum correlation distance and the molecular interaction distance r0, it is possible to define a Fokker-Plank type equation of motion as a function of the mean phase space molecular volume that far-from-equilibrium shows maximizing the dissipation of a part of the generalized SQHA-free energy. In the case of a real gas with no chemical reactions with small temperature gradients, the principle disembogues into the maximum free energy dissipation confirming the experimental outputs of electro-convective instability. In this case, the model shows that the transition to stationary states with higher free energy can happen and that in incompressible fluids, the increase of free energy is almost given by a decrease of entropy leading to the appearance of self-ordered structures. The output of the theory showing that the generation of order via energy dissipation, is more efficient in fluids than in gases, because of their incompressibility, which leads to the reconciliation between physics and biology furnishing the explanation why the life was born in water. The theoretical output also suggests that the search for life out of the earth must consider the possibility to find it in presence of liquid phases different from water.

Keywords

Order Generation; Far from Equilibrium Kinetics; Matter Self-Assembling; Maximum Free Energy Dissipation; Minimum Entropy Production

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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