Speaker:  Eric D. Schneider

Title:   " What is Life?"

Abstract: 
Eric D. Schneider is an interdisciplinary scientist whose thirty-year research program has been a synthesis of physics and biology at a most fundamental level. Specifically he studies the intersection of energy flow and thermodynamics with life. What he has found is that life is one of a continuum of processes that produce order from disorder. Highly organized nonliving physical and chemical systems are ordered by energy and chemical gradients. Life like these inanimate systems import high quality energy and give off low grade energy and are able to build structure, organization and biotic processes from this difference. The origin of life, the development of ecosystems, the direction seen in evolution and an insight into economic systems emerge from this paradigm.

Host:  Charles Kankelbor