What is the Purpose of Life? (Big Picture Ep. 5/5)
October 26, 2016
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4:23Now PlayingWhat is the Purpose of Life? (Big Picture Ep. 5/5)
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as posted by the channelThis video is about how life arose and what its main function or purpose in the universe seems to be. Thanks to for supporting this video, and to Sean Carroll for collaborating on it!
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This video is about how life arose and what its main function or purpose in the universe seems to be. Throughout the universe there is a driving tendency for entropy to increase and free energy to be used up; however, sometimes there is some sort of barrier holding back further potential increase in entropy - these entropically favored but not directly possible reactions (like hydrogen nuclei fusing to become helium, or carbon dioxide reacting with hydrogen to form methane and water), *can* be achieved by larger systems, often complex or complicated, that allow multi-step reaction chains that ultimately lead to the entropically favored state. These systems, (stars, whose nuclei foster conditions amenable to fusion of hydrogen into helium, and life, which fosters conditions amenable to hydrogenating carbon dioxide) are naturally entropically favored, once they arise. And thus the purpose of both life, and stars, can be seen, in the context of the universe, as being a catalyst system that helps facilitate increases in entropy that are not otherwise possible.
Music for the series was especially composed by Nathaniel Schroeder,
REFERENCES & ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
How Life Arose (Hydrogenating CO2 quote)
Sean’s blog on this topic
Michael Russell article
The molecular formula for Fructose
Adenosine Triphosphate (aka ATP)
Hydrogen Fusion Reaction Chain
Richard Pogge (Ohio State University) on Stellar evolution
Stellar evolution lecture notes
Stellar evolution wikipedia
Sean's blog
Sean Carroll: The Big Picture
(more great articles about entropy, etc on his blog )
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