TITLE:
Re-Thinking Biology—I. Maxwell’s Demon and the Spontaneous Origin of Life
AUTHORS:
Christopher Busby, Charles Vyvyan Howard
KEYWORDS:
Abiogenesis, Evolution, Infra-Red, Radiation, Thermodynamics, 2nd Law, Maxwell’s Demon, Phosphate
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Biological Chemistry,
Vol.7 No.5,
September
25,
2017
ABSTRACT: A hypothesis is advanced
in which life began from a Darwinian selection among a diversification of
molecular species containing the phosphate moiety which broke the constraints
implicit in the Second Law of Thermodynamics, discussed famously by Schrodinger,
by obtaining energy from specific infrared frequencies located in the
phosphorus-oxygen vibration at a frequency around 1000 cm-1. We propose the
source of this energy was from the internal conversion of solar broadband energy by the phosphate
mineral Apatite, present at the bottom of a primitive biogenesis pond. In this
scenario, life is re-defined as being hotter than its environment and as using
its excess energy, supplied by infra-red conversion, to react with its
molecular environment and pump itself up the “entropy slope” thereby;
replication is through breakages of increasingly large phosphate containing
biopolymers. The idea has implications for modern explanations of living
systems.