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genius alfred j. lotka

Alfred J. Lotka

We may expect that the law of organic evolution takes the form that it is accompanied in the long run with diminution of some function, analogous to thermodynamic potential, of the parameters defining the physical state of the system as a whole.

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genius alfred j. lotka

Alfred J. Lotka

In organic evolution, trigger action, such as a ‘stimulus’, in the form of a very small dose of external energy, e.g. to the eye or sensor organ, which acts merely as a ‘trigger’ or ‘key’ to release energy supplied by a separate source, such as in the pulling of the trigger of a gun, plays an important role, for trigger action presupposes a fund of free energy ready to be released.

genius alfred j. lotka

Alfred J. Lotka

If this were merely outward appearance of analogy, the oft repeated example would hardly be worth quoting again here. But it is literally true that the nutrient solution is ‘metastable’ in the absence of a germ of an organism capable of growth in it. Whether in primordial nature somewhere locally such a state presented itself, and whether the metastable state could pass over into some kind of elementary ‘living’ matter without the presence of a preexisting germ, just as crystallization of a supersaturated solution can take place even in the absence of a crystal germ, that is today still one of the unsolved problems of science. But if such was the origin of life, we know that it was followed by a long chain of evolutionary development.

genius alfred j. lotka

Alfred J. Lotka

This observation, casually introduced by Ostwald in one of his lectures in 1902, was the ‘trigger’ that set off the train of thought developed in my subsequent publications, and summarized, in part, in my Elements of Physical Biology (1925) and Analytical Theory of Biological Associations (Theorie Analytique des Associations Biologiques) (1934, 1939).

genius alfred j. lotka

Alfred J. Lotka

An irreversible process, as the physicist uses the words, is associated with a decrease in thermodynamic potential, with capacity for yielding a balance of work, as when one gas diffuses into another gas.

genius alfred j. lotka

Alfred J. Lotka

What we seek is not an ‘empirical rule’, but a law of nature that brooks no exceptions.