The Fourth Law of Thermodynamics: The Law of Maximum Entropy Production (LMEP)

Abstract

More than 20 years ago, Swenson (1988) proposed and elaborated the Law of Maximum Entropy Production (LMEP) as the missing piece of physical or universal law that would account for the ubiquitous and opportunistic transformation from disordered, or less ordered, to more highly ordered states. Given Boltzmann's (1974) interpretation, the Second Law of Thermodynamics has generally been interpreted as a “law of disorder.” Schrödinger (1945) and Bertalanffy (1952) had shown, however, that the Second Law, viewed from the classical perspective of Clausius (1865) and Thomson (1852), was not anathema to order. Ordered flow, including life, was permissible as long as it produced enough entropy to compensate for its own internal entropy reduction. The central problem remained, however: If the spontaneous production of order was “infinitely improbable,” as Boltzmann had surmised, then why were ordered systems such a fundamental and characteristic property of the visible world? LMEP provided the answer: Order production is inexorable because order produces entropy faster than disorder. In Swenson (1989d), LMEP was given expression as a precise law that could be demonstrated in falsifiable, experimental, physical terms. In Swenson and Turvey (1991), LMEP was tied explicitly to the progressive emergence of living things with their perception–action capabilities.

Notes

Correspondence should be addressed to Rod Swenson. E-mail: [email protected]

¹Swenson's aside: “At its origins and for more than a decade and a half ‘MEP’ was used by me and others for LMEP. Unfortunately, in the last several years some authors have adopted ‘MEP’ indiscriminately to make different, sometimes vague, and often wrong, assertions about entropy production. In an effort to try to avoid the confusion that has resulted I generally use simply ‘LMEP.’”

²In his Nobel lecture (1977/1993) Prigogine said, “It came as a great surprise when it was finally shown that far from equilibrium the thermodynamic behavior could be quite different, in fact, even opposite to that indicated by the theorem of minimum entropy production” (p. 88).

³ Eddington (1928) wrote, “If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations—then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation—well these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation” (p. 74).