Into the Cool: Energy Flow, Thermodynamics, and Life

Into the Cool: Energy Flow, Thermodynamics, and Life
by Eric D. Schneider, Dorion Sagan

Into the Cool: Energy Flow, Thermodynamics, and Life
List Price: $18.00
Our Price: $11.07
You Save: $6.93 (38%)
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy Used: from $8.73 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions


(Click here)
Buy this book at online book store in your country
Canada | UK | Germany | France

Book Summary Information

Author: Dorion Sagan, Eric D. Schneider
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-12-31
ISBN: 0226739376
Number of pages: 378
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press

Book Reviews of Into the Cool: Energy Flow, Thermodynamics, and Life

Book Review: Everything Burns
Summary: 5 Stars

Other reviewers have summarized the substance. Let me address the significance. Especially to "humanities" types like me.

It is often said that there are some books that "must be read by every educated adult." When C.P. Snow famously identified a growing chasm between the "Two Cultures" of science and the humanities, he chose the Second Law of Thermodynamics, apparently at random, as an example of scientific achievement that ought to be acknowledged by all intellectual tribes. Snow argued that ignorance of the Law was like ignorance of Shakespeare.

The book demonstrates that Snow's choice was profound. It is precisely the Second Law which has divided the "Two Cultures," and it is our new understanding of it that promises a reunion. The real cultural divide is not between the solemn ediface of "science" and the mushy-headed world of the humanities. The real divide is between those fields that bear relevance to the human world (sociology, economics, biology) and those that do not (chemistry, physics) - and the Second Law, properly understood, spans this divide.

The authors argue that Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics (NET) is the link that connects the heavens to the human world. Physicists have observed that the universe seems to be "winding down" from order into chaos - the inevitable entropic process toward "heat death" that is predicted by the Second Law. At the same time, biologists, economists, and climatologists have exhaustively documented local processes that appear to be "winding up" to higher states of order, increased interconnectedness, higher intelligence, and economic development.

In other words, stock in the humanities and life sciences has been going up, while physics remains a world of existential gloom. So why bother with physics, when you can find hope in film studies, philosophy or economics? (Hell, with film studies in particular, you may even find some young reproductive opportunity in a tight sweater, and flout the Second Law together.)

The authors suggest that there is no hard division between the "sciences" and the "humanities." The cosmos is one; it is knowable and worth knowing, even by the dopiest of mathematical illiterates. Humanities types should now cross this abyss - because NET explains human life in terms of physical law. And NET may hold the answers not just to "how" questions, but perhaps also "why" questions.

This is not an easy read. In addressing both a lay and an academic audience simultaneously, the authors walk a tightrope, but they mostly pull it off. There are some indistinct concepts and undefined terms here and there. Worse, there is some math. But if you want to understand yourself in a new light, this book is worth the slog.

Summary of Into the Cool: Energy Flow, Thermodynamics, and Life

Scientists, theologians, and philosophers have all sought to answer the questions of why we are here and where we are going. Finding this natural basis of life has proved elusive, but in the eloquent and creative Into the Cool, Eric D. Schneider and Dorion Sagan look for answers in a surprising place: the second law of thermodynamics. This second law refers to energy's inevitable tendency to change from being concentrated in one place to becoming spread out over time. In this scientific tour de force, Schneider and Sagan show how the second law is behind evolution, ecology,economics, and even life's origin.

Working from the precept that "nature abhors a gradient," Into the Cool details how complex systems emerge, enlarge, and reproduce in a world tending toward disorder. From hurricanes here to life on other worlds, from human evolution to the systems humans have created, this pervasive pull toward equilibrium governs life at its molecular base and at its peak in the elaborate structures of living complex systems. Schneider and Sagan organize their argument in a highly accessible manner, moving from descriptions of the basic physics behind energy flow to the organization of complex systems to the role of energy in life to the final section, which applies their concept of energy flow to politics, economics, and even human health.

A book that needs to be grappled with by all those who wonder at the organizing principles of existence, Into the Cool will appeal to both humanists and scientists. If Charles Darwin shook the world by showing the common ancestry of all life, so Into the Cool has a similar power to disturb?and delight?by showing the common roots in energy flow of all complex, organized, and naturally functioning systems.

?Whether one is considering the difference between heat and cold or between inflated prices and market values, Schneider and Sagan argue, we can apply insights from thermodynamics and entropy to understand how systems tend toward equilibrium. The result is an impressive work that ranges across disciplinary boundaries and draws from disparate literatures without blinking.??Publishers Weekly

Biology Books

Book Subjects
Most talked about in Biology Books
Living Planet: Preserving Edens of the Earth ImageLiving Planet: Preserving Edens of the Earth
by World Wildlife Fund
Crown; Published: 1999-09-07; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $8.89
Price in other shops: $40.00
Modern Infectious Disease Epidemiology ImageModern Infectious Disease Epidemiology
by Johan Giesecke
Hodder Arnold Publishers; Published: 1994-01-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $36.00
Scientist's Guide to Poster Presentations ImageScientist's Guide to Poster Presentations
by Peter J. Gosling
Springer; Published: 1999-06-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $59.69
Price in other shops: $89.95
Rivers in Time: The Search for Clues to Earth's Mass Extinctions ImageRivers in Time: The Search for Clues to Earth's Mass Extinctions
by Peter D. Ward
Columbia University Press; Published: 2000-03-15; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $20.00
Price in other shops: $75.50
Out of Control: The Rise of Neo-Biological Civilization ImageOut of Control: The Rise of Neo-Biological Civilization
by Kevin Kelly
Perseus Books; Published: 1994-05; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $11.99
Price in other shops: $28.00
The Way of the Cell: Molecules, Organisms, and the Order of Life ImageThe Way of the Cell: Molecules, Organisms, and the Order of Life
by Franklin M. Harold
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2001-06-21; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $6.00
Price in other shops: $45.00
The Selfish Gene (New Edition) ImageThe Selfish Gene (New Edition)
by Richard Dawkins
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1989-11-23; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $87.35
Reef Evolution ImageReef Evolution
by Rachel Wood
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1999-07-29; Hardcover; Book
Price in other shops: $100.00
Biology ImageBiology
by Sylvia S. Mader
McGraw-Hill College; Published: 2000; Hardcover; Book
Anatomy and Physiology ImageAnatomy and Physiology
by SEELEY
McGraw-Hill Education; Published: 1999-05; Hardcover; Book
Similar Books and other products
Thermodynamics (Dover Books on Physics) ImageThermodynamics (Dover Books on Physics)
by Enrico Fermi, Physics
Dover Publications; Published: 1956-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.29
Price in other shops: $10.95
The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality ImageThe End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality
by Richard Heinberg
New Society Publishers; Published: 2011-08-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.09
Price in other shops: $17.95
Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means ImageLinked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means
by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi
Plume; Published: 2003-04-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.50
Price in other shops: $16.00
Entropy Demystified: The Second Law Reduced to Plain Common Sense ImageEntropy Demystified: The Second Law Reduced to Plain Common Sense
by Arieh Ben-Naim
World Scientific Publishing Company; Published: 2008-06-18; Paperback; Book
Best price: $20.94
Price in other shops: $33.00
The Evolutionary Foundations of Economics ImageThe Evolutionary Foundations of Economics
Cambridge University Press; Published: 2006-08-21; Paperback; Book
Best price: $45.73
Price in other shops: $55.00
Understanding Thermodynamics (Dover Books on Physics) ImageUnderstanding Thermodynamics (Dover Books on Physics)
by H.C. Van Ness, Physics
Dover Publications; Published: 1983-01-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.12
Price in other shops: $7.95
The End of Certainty ImageThe End of Certainty
by Ilya Prigogine
Free Press; Published: 1997-08-17; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $11.37
Price in other shops: $25.00
Four Laws That Drive the Universe ImageFour Laws That Drive the Universe
by Peter Atkins
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2007-09-27; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $9.95
Price in other shops: $19.95
A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History ImageA Thousand Years of Nonlinear History
by Manuel de De Landa, Manuel De Landa
The MIT Press; Published: 2000-09-18; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.60
Price in other shops: $22.95
The Laws of Thermodynamics: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) ImageThe Laws of Thermodynamics: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)
by Peter Atkins
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2010-04-19; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.11
Price in other shops: $11.95
Book store. Illustrated catalog of books on different categories