Brian Miller: Thermodynamics and the Origin of Life

To understand my statement, it helps to consider an example. Posed as a question - which has the greater entropy, a mixture of salad oil and water that is perfectly separated (extremely highly ordered) or one that is completely mixed (and thus extremely disordered)? The answer, of course, is the former. This is a case wherein the higher entropy state is the more ordered state. AND it requires no energy flux to spontaneously assume such a state.

This is the basis of hydrophobic interactions, which in turn are bases of protein-protein interactions in a cell. (And other macromolecular interactions). Stated briefly, the macromolecules in a cell do not form large assemblies and structures in spite of entropy (or the second law), but because of entropy. (If you are having trouble with this, remember that one needs to account for ALL of the components of a cell. This includes solvent and solutes. Bound or constrained solvent contributes as much to the overall entropy status as what may seem to be highly ordered macromolecular complexes.)

Let me know if clears things up.

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