Thermodynamic Dissipation Theory of the Origin and Evolution of Life

How did life on Earth arise? This question has captured the imagination of curious minds ever since the dawn of humanity. Countless myths have been told, but a plausible scientific explanation has resisted 160 years of vigorous research since Darwin. Now, for the first time in this book, physicist Karo Michaelian reviews a bold new theory based on the dissipation of UV-C light into heat. As with every irreversible process, life could only arise, proliferate, and evolve by dissipating an external generalized chemical potential and Michaelian identifies this with the UV-C photon potential arriving at Earth's surface during the Archean. The theory is drawing a lot of attention because of its ability to explain many of the salient characteristics of the fundamental molecules of life and the reason for the evolution of a complex biosphere.

Michaelian backs his theory with data drawn from his own experiments and from a large amount of empirical data obtained from epochs all the way back to the beginning of life. The implications are disconcerting; many contemporary paradigms concerning life and evolution are nonviable. Even the cherished Darwinian paradigm, with its implicit metaphysical “will to survive”, selection only at the level of the organism, and the inescapable tautology in “survival of the survivors” (irrespective of Popper's recanting) is reformulated on thermodynamic principles in the book.

Michaelian concludes that life similar, and not so similar, to our own should exist everywhere in the Universe wherever there exists the organic elements, UV-C light, and a dissipative solvent medium. In fact, he suggests that we have already discovered extraterrestrial life on other planets of our own solar system, and even within the galactic interstellar clouds of gas and dust, but have yet to recognize it as such under the old paradigms. A program for best searching for this extraterrestrial life at the different stages of dissipation development is detailed within the book.

Karo Michaelian has Ph.D. in physics from the University of Alberta, Canada and has worked at a number of research institutes throughout the world from nuclear physics to complex systems and non-equilibrium thermodynamics. His book makes fascinating reading in understandable language for the avid amateur but also has much detail, including mathematical derivation of thermodynamic principles, for the professional who wants an in depth understanding. The book contains 422 pages with 140 images and diagrams and 414 references. A detailed historical sketch of origin of life research is presented, including; Ideas from Antiquity, Darwinian Theory, the Miller Experiments, the RNA World, and Gaia Theory. Mathematical demonstrations are left to boxes that can be skipped without much loss of continuity of argument. Analogies help to make the theory understandable to those who may have an adverseness to mathematics or who lack an understanding of non-equilibrium thermodynamics.