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While I was away on vacation last month, WordPress sent an email congratulating me on the third anniversary of the start of this blog. This stimulated me to look at the statistics on the most frequently read, or at least viewed, of the approximately 160 postings that I have written. Top of the list is an early posting which asks the question ‘Are there any closed systems in nature?’ (see post entitled ‘Closed systems in Nature?’ on December 21st, 2012). Since this question has generated more interest than any of my subsequent postings, it seems appropriate, after 30 months, to attempt an answer.
Alexander Bogdanov (1873-1928), and independently Karl Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901-1972), recognized that all living systems are open systems in the thermodynamic sense, which operate far-from equilibrium and require a continual flux of matter and energy to sustain life. By contrast, closed thermodynamic systems tend to settle into a state of equilibrium, i.e. with no differences in…
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