Abstract
The first 13.8 or so billion years of the universe’s existence might be thought of as an elaboration of the details of the Book of Genesis. God said “Let there be light”. And what followed, according to the astrophysical orthodox view, was the “Big Bang” (BB), or perhaps it was the “Big Lightning Bolt” (BLB) since the word “Bang” connotes a loud sound, like what happens when you slam a door, which implies the existence of air to carry the vibrations and an ear to hear, whereas ….OK, that sentence is already out of control, so let’s go on to the next one from Genesis (as I remember it): “And there was light”. But the guy who trans-scribed Genesis from God’s words probably said “light” when he really meant to say “energy”, which is what God actually created that day. The identity of mass and energy came later. Unfortunately, the word “energy”—or energeia—hadn’t yet been created because Aristotle wasn’t born yet, so the author of Genesis said “light”.
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Notes
- 1.
Earth is not a permanent magnet, like a lodestone. As noted in Sect. 4.8, the Earth’s magnetic field is apparently created by convective currents of molten metal (iron and nickel) around its solid iron core. Cooling of the core may reduce the intensity of the Earth’s magnetosphere, and thus permit deeper penetration by the “solar wind”. Indeed, magnetic field reversals seem to occur at regular intervals. Such a reversal is expected (by the specialists) in the next few thousand years. It is unclear whether this reversal would have a significant impact on the biosphere.
- 2.
While the most interesting examples of dissipative structures are living systems, there are a number of simple abiotic examples. The ozone layer is one. Others include the famous Benard cell, which exhibits cooperative behavior that greatly enhances heat transfer across a thermal gradient (Koschmieder 1993). Whirlpools, cyclones and tornados and sunspots are other examples of cooperative physical systems that enhance heat transfer and destroy thermal gradients.
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Ayres, R. (2016). Summary of Part I: From the “Big Bang” to Nutrient Cycles. In: Energy, Complexity and Wealth Maximization. The Frontiers Collection. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30545-5_7
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