Posts Tagged ‘statistical mechanics’

About Intelligent Design

Tuesday, April 17th, 2012

Thermodynamics, the Science of Heat, became an important science in the 19th century when physicists started to improve the Steam-Machine. This blog is about a recently discovered law of Thermodynamics called the Constructal Law.

The Constructal Law describes How Intelligent Systems emerge out of the Laws of Thermodynamics.

Heat is Random Motion

According to Thermodynamics the evolution of the universe has been characterized by an on-going transformation from a simple, restricted, highly condensed, homogeneous state (the Big Bang) to an increasingly complex, widely dispersed, dynamic, multipotent, granular diversity.

Energy always moves from High to Low Temperature. This is the main reason why most of the energy of Earth comes from our Sun.

With help of the Electro-Magnetic radiation of the Sun we call Light, plants, algae and bacteria transform simple molecules into complex organic structures (Biomass = Potential Chemical Energy) and store the energy of the Sun. Bacteria and Fungi brake up these structures, produce heat, reduce the complexity, and close the Cycle.

The Input of the Heat of the Sun has to be compensated by a comparable Output of Radiation otherwise Earth would be burned instantly. The difference between the Input and Output of Energy is transformed into Movements on Earth.

The Earth’s climate is a huge flow system. It circulates air and water from the tropics to the poles and back. These flows develop as air and water move from hot to cold regions, a result of variation in the heating of the Earth’s surface by the sun.

The Earth is not only heated by the Sun. The hot kernel of the Earth is surrounded by a small crust. At certain places on Earth and the Sea the rotating pool of the magma-ocean produces a lot of energy.

The Earth with its solar heat input, heat rejection, and wheels of atmospheric and oceanic circulation, is a heat engine without shaft. Its maximized mechanical power cannot be delivered, but is instead destined to dissipate through air and water friction and other forms of heat loss. It produces maximum power, which it then dissipates at a maximum rate.

The earth is wasting a lot of energy because the transmission of  most of its energy is not contained in a Tube-like-system.

The system maximizes the sum of the work done driving the planetary circulation, and the heat rejected back to space at the cold end of the heat engine.

When the speed of the planetary circulation is low, so are the turbulent losses. As speed increases, up to a certain point the sum of work done (circulation speed) and heat rejected also increasing until the turbulence starts to interfere with the circulation and  actually decrease the total of work done and heat rejected. That is the point, “the edge of turbulence”,  at which the system will naturally run.

Every flow system tries to find the perfect balance between movement and friction.

The interesting point is that friction is movement in opposition to itself.

Clouds on the Edge of Turbulence

The biomass on Earth is direct or later (Oil, Gaz, Coal) consumed by all kinds of organisms. In Food-Webs Organisms are consumed by other organisms.

We, the Humans, describe the interaction of the organisms in the Food-Webs as a Struggle for Live, a Survival of the Fittest, but the flow of energy in the food webs could also be seen as an adaptive chain of chemical reactions that are performed in self-moving, self-reproducing chemical factories.

Energy is Potential Movement. The potential energy stored in the biomass on Earth is transformed into circular movement (kinetic energy). During this transformation Heat is produced. Heat is the waste produced by a restrained non-effective movement.

The energy of the Sun produces all kinds of movements on Earth. Examples are river-delta’s, our respiratory system and the weather-system.

Flow Systems that move from one  to many always look like a leaf or a tree

Flow Systems that move from One to Many always look like a Leaf or a Tree. Left a River Delta is shown. Right a picture of the Lungs is displayed.

According to Constructal Theory the generation of design (configuration, patterns, geometry, shape, structure, rhythm) in nature is a physical phenomenon that unites all animate and inanimate systems. Design in Nature always shows itself as systems that flow and improve themselves.  Systems improve themselves because the movement from chaos to order takes many discrete steps.

Biological organisms are flow systems. River basins are flow systems. A Tree is a flow system. The Traffic System is a flow system. The City of Paris is a flow system. The Financial Market is a flow system. The Internet is a flow system. A Proces-Manager is a flow system.

Flow Systems

All these flow systems must be structured (architecturally designed) in such a way that the currents that flow (Life Energy, Water, Air, Electricity, Gaz, People, Cars, Trains, Airplanes, Content, Money) increasingly get to where they need to go. This gives shape and structure to everything that evolves over time.

Flow Systems always remove the Resistance to the Flow themselves.

Constructal Law is formulated as follows: “For a finite-size system to persist in time (to live), it must evolve in such a way that it provides easier access to the imposed currents that flow through it.”.

Nature always provides Resistance to Change (Heat, Erosion, Friction) and this resistance is provided by the Systems of the Past. The current Order resists the potential Chaos of Free Moving Energy.

The Paths of Change of our Universe always move in the same way. The pattern looks like a Moebius Ring, the number 8, because this is the only way to cope with the polarity of the movements. In a Moebius Ring two Opposite Cyclic Movements are perfectly United.

A Moebius Ring is a 2D-structure that operates in 3D because it needs a Twist to operate.

According to Constructal Theory the Energy of the Sun creates two types of Systems called Engines and Brakes.

Engines are the most effective and efficient states in the evolution of our Universe. They have found the best way to cope with the resistance that is provided by the Brakes. Brakes are the old systems like trees, forests and natural or constructed dams that slow down the movement so the potential energy can be stored.

If the Energy of the Sun is not stored,  the Self-Reproducing Systems are unable to evolve to a higher level of organization.  If every Resistance would be gone the Flow-Systems would Flow in a Radial Pattern to every Direction possible.

If we remove the Natural Brakes (Forests, River-delta’s) the Expansive Flow-systems will take over control and the Smart Highly Improbable Next Generation Brake Systems, the Organisms would die.

We, the Humans, are here to Resist the Engines that give the Flow-Systems the opportunity to make Everything the Same. Every Thing has to become the Same because the Universe does not discriminate. Every configuration has the same chance to be alive.

Dependent on the type of flow there are standard solutions to the dualities that are provided by the eternal battle between engine (movement) and brake (not-movement).

Paris is a Flow System

The standard solution can be calculated using the Laws of Thermodynamics. Tree (or Leaf)-shaped fractal systems are for example the best solution for a One-to-Many (or Many-to-One) Flow. The Flow Systems always converge to these Shapes.

Our Earth is rotating, spinning and moving around our moving Sun. The influx of Energy on every area on Earth is changing all the time.

This means that every Flow-System on Earth has to adapt to the short term and long term changing Energy Input of the Sun.

The stability of a Flow-System, the Resistance to Change, is highly dependent on the Resilience of the System.

According to the theory of Panarchy the Resilience of a System is dependent on the Potential and the Connectedness of a System.

In  the Exploitation/Conservation phase of the Adaptive Panarchy-Cycle the Constructal Engines become more efficient (producing more Potential) and Connected. This means that the amount of possible paths in the River-delta of the System is reduced. This amount determinates the resilience of the system.

At the state of maximum production and maximum connection (conservation) the system is spending all its potential at self-reproduction and is highly vulnerable to external disturbances. At a certain moment when a disturbance destroys the majority of the paths the system collapses (release).

Revolt: A small Wildfire can destroy a complete Ecology

The bits and pieces, the components, of the scattered ecology are reassembled sometimes in a different way (reorganization) and the system starts again most of the time on a higher level of organization.

Kleiber's law

Kleiber’s Law is an example of the Constructal Law. It shows the many levels of organization that have occured since the chemical factories of the bacteria started to work together. Kleiber’s Law can be extented to the level of the Community and the City.

The Panarchy Cycle is Self-Similar. It repeats itself on many Scales. The higher the scale the bigger the impact and the slower change takes place.

The Scales are interconnected. A huge disturbance on a lower scale (Revolt) can have an huge impact on a higher scale when both cycles are moving into the Release State.

A Slow moving High Level Cycle can help to restructure a fast moving cycle by providing the template of the way the components were originally assembled (its CommunityDNA) (Remember).

Constructal Law is a Law of Thermodynamics. Thermodynamics has evolved into a Statistical Theory called Statistical Mechanics. To calculate a probability you have to define the Space of all Possibilities of a System, the Phase Space.

When you don’t know what a system will look like it is impossible to calculate the Phase Space. To calculate the possibilities of Constructal Law you have to imagine the possible constructions of Mother Nature.

It is possible to play with Probability Theory without knowing the exact Phase Space. In this case you have to look at the probabilities of the probabilities. These probabilities are described by the Triangle of Pascal. Behind the Triangle of Pascal a new Triangular Structure shows itself. This pattern goes on and on until the primary Triangle of Creation, the Holy Trinity, is reached.

The Trinity is a combination of Desire (Mother, Female, Expansion, FLOW), Control (Father, Male, Compression, BRAKE) and the combination of both Expansion AND Compression also called the Void or the Tao. In Physics the Void is called the Vacuum or the Zero-Point-Field.

The Triangular Pattern behind the Triangle of Pascal

When we have moved back in time and have reached the state of the Trinity we are very close to the Big Bang. The Big Bang is a result of the Union of the Opposites (Yin/Yang, Male/Female, Matter/Anti-Matter, Expansion/Compression) that both came out of the Void.

The Vacuum is the Eternal Flow System of Creation. It contains everything that is possible even the impossible, the Empty Set.

The Tao is like a well: 

used but never used up.

It is like the eternal void:

filled with infinite possibilities.

It is hidden but always present.

I don’t know who gave birth to it.

It is older than God.

(Tao Te Ching 4)

According to Constructal Law every finite-size system must evolve in such a way that it provides easier access to the imposed currents that flow through it.

The Tao is the Channel of the Energy of Life. If Constructal Law is Right we have to give easier access to this Flow. We have to become the River to move to our final destination, the Sea of the Nothing.

LINKS 

A video about Constructal Theory

About the Higgs Field and the Big Bang

Why the Objects in the Universe are of Different Size

About Innovation and Thermodynamics 

About the Big Bang

About Friction

About the Big Freeze

About the Constructal Theory of David Deutsch

The Website about Constructal Theory

An Introduction into Constructal Theory

About Morphology

About Panarchy

About Kleiber’s Law

About Genetic Similarity Theory

Why a City is an Organism

About the Triangle of Pascal and the Holy Trinity

About the Holy Trinity

About Constructal Law and the Trinity

Attraction + Obstacles = Excitement 

About the Law of three & Gurdjieff

 

 

About Combining the Combinations

Monday, May 30th, 2011

 

steam_engine

Evolution means the creation of larger and larger islands of order at the expense of even greater seas of disorder in the world. In the process of evolution, each succeeding species is more complex and thus better equipped as a transformer of available energy.: Jeremy Rifkin, Entropy: A New World View (1980).

You wouldn’t enjoy a perfectly ordered universe. A wholly ordered universe would be at perfect equilibrium and would be dead. There can arise no Order unless there is a Flow of Matter and Energy which decreases in intensity as a system moves toward equilibrium. Motion, change or evolution in the Universe is driven by fluxes of energy and energy-rich matter flowing from sources of high potential to sinks of lower potential.

During the road from Being to Becoming Cyclic Auto-Catalytic Systems are created that Re-Create themselves until they Die. Islands of Order Appear and Disappear in the Sea of Chaos.

About Thermodynamics

Thermodynamics is the Science of the Transfer of Energy.

In strict Scientific terms Energy is classified into two main forms: Kinetic and Potential energy. Kinetic Energy is defined as the energy of a moving object. Potential Energy is defined as the energy in matter due to its position or the arrangement of its parts. The various forms of Potential Energy include gravitational potential energy, elastic potential energy, chemical potential energy, and electrical potential energy.

The First Law of Thermodynamics says that the total quantity of Energy in the universe remains Constant.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that the quality of this energy is degraded irreversibly. The Second Law predicts that our Universe will end when the Explosive Motion of the Big Bang wil stop and we will reach the Absolute Zero.

Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot (1790-1832) detected the Second Law of Thermodynamics when he tried to find the most efficient heating engine.

According to Carnot the Efficiency of an Engine is (T1T2)⁄T1, where T1 is the highest temparature. The Higher the Difference between the two Temperatures of the Engine the Lower the Efficiency. The Bigger the Step the Higher the Waste. If you want to build a highly efficient Engine, the Engine has to make very Small Steps when the Engine is heated.  This principle is known as Adiabatic Expansion (and Compression).

Physical, Chemical, and Electrical energy can be completely changed into Heat. But the Reverse (heat into physical energy, for example) cannot be accomplished without a loss. The irreversible increase of this nondisposable, useless, energy in the universe is measured by the abstract dimension  called Entropy (from the Greek entrope, change).

The Entropy measures the degree to which the probability of the system is spread out over different possible states. If all the possible States of the System are the Same, the System is in Equilibrium and the Entropy, the State of Order,  is on its Maximum.

In the Beginning of the Universe Every Thing was Different. In the End State Every Part of the Universe will be the Same.

About the History of Innovation

The central actor in the 19th century model of cultural innovation is the Artist, conceived, as an individual creator of works of art. Art is produced only by a handful of exceptional individuals.

The process of technical innovation in the 19th century was seen in terms similar. The central focus was on the work of individual inventors and researchers, commonly with little or no specifically scientific training.

By the early 20th century, this model was displaced by an industrialized process of innovation.

The first major step in this process was the rise of the Research University and the development of a large class of technically trained workers. In the 20th century, pure scientific research had become the preserve of universities and specialist research institutes.

The second major step was the development of corporate forms of business organization, which allowed Research and Development to become an organized business activity, operated on industrial lines.

The pattern of innovation in the 21st century is radically different. In most sectors of the economy, the rate of technological progress has slowed down substantially. Technological progress is characterised largely by Incremental Improvements to mature products.

In Computing and Telecommunications, the rate of progress has accelerated dramatically since the late 1980. The convergence of Computing and Telecommunications in the Internet has fundamentally transformed every activity it has touched. Everything that can be formalized will be formalized.

The Internet makes it possible that disjunct Networks of Isolated Innovators connect and share their Knowledge and Experience.

The Artist,  now connected with many other “exceptional individuals” all over the world,  is on its return.

About Incremental and Disruptive Industrial Innovation

There are two types of Industrial Innovation called “incremental”  and disruptive” innovation.

Japan (and now China) has made incremental improvement the cornerstone of  Technical Advancement. After months and years of gradual (adiabatic) changes, products look radically different, as happened with semiconductors, solar cells and batteries.

The US claims that it is the Champion of Disruptive Innovation.  Their “Internet”-entrepeneurs like Amazon, Google and Facebook believe in a “Statistical” model of Innovation, A Portfolio or an Innovation Ecology.

One of the many “Trials and Errors” will result in a big breakthrough that will Disrupt the Market. Behind Disruptive Innovation lies the Concept of Evolution, Survival of the Fittest, the Essence of Capitalism.

Disruptive Innovation uses Incremental Innovation to improve the Parts of the Portfolio.

Incremental Innovation (“Proces/Product/Business Model Improvement”) takes place  when an Innovation is improved until the Limits are reached.

Incremental Innovation could use the Efficient Small Steps of the Adiabatic Process to reach the Goal of the highly Effective.

Most of the time Proces/Product Improvement (“Standardization”) is not a Structured Process because People believe Innovation is about “Thinking Out of the Box”. If People “Think out of the Box” the proces will move into a Chaotic State and will Die.

Creative Incremental Innovation will produce a Lot of Waste (“Heat”, “Fuzz”) and accomplish Nothing. Managed Incremental Innovation has to remove the Waste and the Constraints.

With every step that is taken the System has to become more probable so the results of the proces will be more predictable. When the Limits are reached, we have to Restucture the System to move on.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics shows that Closed Systems finally Converge to a State of Equillibrium with a High Probability, a High Entropy.

Systems that are Isolated by a Boundary behave as Closed Systems. Systems that are Open to other Systems Merge and become Closed.

Most of the Time people don’t understand the Boundary of their System and Act in a Shared Boundary. In this Shared Boundary Competition takes place. Competition is a waste of Energy. If People could define their Boundaries they could Cooperate.

People Communicate. They  Share their Ideas, Problems and Solutions.  When a Process is well understood the Improvements of the Process are disseminated through the Human Networks and widely Copied.

Human Networks are Closed Systems that are connected to other Networks by Boundary Spanners.

Most people don’t understand that there are other people in other Networks who are doing the Same thing they are doing. They think their activity is Unique and don’t understand that the State of Uniqueness was only there at the Beginning.

Secrecy slows down communication between the People in the Network. The result of Secrecy is that People are unable to learn from others so they are unable to reuse the solutions of others. Secrecy is again a Waste of Time.

In the end the Competitive Advantage of the Innovation is completely gone and the Entropy of the System is at its Maximum.

At that moment every Process in every Part of the System will be the Same and the Companies will Merge or will be taken over by other Companies. Winner Takes All.

The Temperature of the Industry will move to Zero and every Movement (and Innovation) will stop.

About Creativity

There are two Views on Creativity. Creativity is a Combinatorical Game and Creativity is a Spontaneous Eruption of Ideas forced by High Pressure.

At such a moment, “the Aha-Erlebnis“, two or more Frames of Reference Fuse and a new Innovative Combination is created.

The last view has a lot to do with the theory of “Self-Organized Criticallity“.

The Metaphor of this Theory is the Disaster, the Avalanche or the Sand Pile that Suddenly moves when the critical grain of sand falls. At that moment a Significant Part of the Collection of individual grains Combines and moves on its own.

When a System is reaching the Boundaries of Proces Improvement and a Huge Pressure to Innovate is experienced,  two or more Systems (“Frames of Reference”) Fuse (Combine).

When the Systems are in Equilibrium the Fusion is easy (“Connecting”) otherwise the Fusion could become a Disaster, a Disruption, a Creative Destruction and a Huge Amount of Heat (Waste) is produced.

About Managed Creativity

If Innovation  is a Combinatorial Game we have to restructure a System into a “loosely-coupled”  System of Components and combine the Components with the “well-articulated” Components of other Systems.

A Loosely Coupled System is a System where each of its components has, or makes use of, little or no knowledge of the definitions of other separate components. The components act as Black-Boxes“.

A Component is “well-articulated” if it contains Just Enough Functionality to do the job. An Under-Articulated system is Rigid. It contains Not Enough functionality to Adapt to the Changing environment. When Systems grow old they become Over-Articulated because the Designers want to add new functionality without looking at the Boundaries of the System. Over-Articulated Systems overlap and it becomes very difficult to find the Essence. Designers always want to Solve every problem with their Own System.

Genrich S. Altshuller was a Russian Patent Officer who tried to find a Pattern behind Patents.

Altshuller screened over 200,000 patents looking for Inventive problems and how they were solved. Of these only 40,000 (20%) had somewhat Inventive solutions; the rest were straight forward improvements.

Altshuller defined an Inventive problem as one in which the solution causes another problem, a Contra-Diction or Conflict,  to appear. He found that the same problems had been solved over and over again using one of only Forty fundamental inventive principles. Altshuller  named his method  TRIZ.

Humans are prone to reivent the Wheel many times because they only look for Solutions in their own Frame of Reference. The Solution of their Problem is almost all the time already available in another Domain.

Roni Horowitz has analyzed the Principles of Althuller and found a deeper structure behind TRIZ which he called ASIT.

ASIT is about Thinking Inside the Box instead of Outside the Box. The so called Closed World condition, forces the thinker to find a creative solution by heavily limiting his or hers Space of Possibilities.

The Qualitative Change Principle looks for solutions in which the influence of the main problem factor is either totally eliminated or even reversed. The System has to become Perfect. Every Component has to fullfill just one Task  (“Well Articulated”) and the Functions of the System have to create a “Closed World” which means that the System has to be Closed in Itself.

About Combining the Combinations

The Second Law of Thermodynamics shows that it is Almost Impossible to move back to an old solution when the Solution is widely used.

Nature Solves its Problems by Experimenting but the Experiments are not completely at Random. Nature uses an Established Infrastructure and Plays with all the Possible Paths that Emerge out of the Existing Infrastructure, The Adjacent Possible.

Before life emerged on Earth, the planet was dominated by a handful of basic molecules. Each of these molecules was capable of a finite series of transformations and exchanges with other molecules in the primordial soup.

According to Stuart Kauffman Life  started when the Chemical Parts of early life  started to Re-Create themselves in a Cyclic Process  called AutoCatalysis. Re-Creation of the Same Structure is one of the most important principles of a Living System. Our body is recreated all the time in an endless Cycle until we Die.

If you could Play with all the Primordial Combinations, you would end up with the Components of Life but it is impossible to create a mosquito, or a sunflower, or a human brain.They were created when the Combinations started to Combine Again and Again.

Innovation in Nature is an endless Cyclic Expanding proces of Combining the Combinations.

This process moves on until the Limits of the Expanding Space of Possibilities are reached. These Limits are reached when there is not enough “useful” Energy available.

Combining the Combination happens in Nature but also in our Culture. Old infrastructures are used in a new way and a complete new field of Combinatorics appears.

Johannes Gutenberg took the older technology of the screw press, designed originally for making wine, and reconfigured it with metal type to invent the printing press which made it possible that new ideas, concepts and procedures were better dissiminated through the Human Networks.

Is there an End to Human Innovation?

The Universe is Expanding and is Creating New Combinations of Combinations all the Time.

The Law of Kleiber shows that the Combinations of the Combinations Fuse. The Law of Kleiber is just like Self-Organized Criticallity represented by a Power-Law. Power-Laws are independent of a Scale and therefore applicable on every Level of the Universe. They show that One Principle (“a Fractal“) Repeats itself on every Level.

Every time when the Combinations Fuse they are better equipped as a Transformer of Available Energy but the Creation of larger and larger islands of Order happens at the Expense of even greater seas of Disorder. Humanity is Wasting resources at an increasing rate, and that will lead to the destruction of our civilization.

The Combinations become Bigger and Bigger AND the Big Structures Attract Each Other. The larger group of possibilities will always be the Dominant Attractor.

This is the main reason for the success of Google, Facebook and Twitter. They have aquired the Power to Control their Market by Giving away their Products for Free so the Amount of Users would grow Exponentionally. They make money by letting other companies pay for the Use of their Huge Attractor.

The Small Auto-Katalytic Chemical Factories, the Bacteria,  that were created in the beginning are now fusing into Very Big Cities and the next Step will be One Mega-City covering a Huge Area of the Earth.  These Mega-Cities will be extremely Efficient and Effective. When this happens Nature will be replaced by a Human Made Technological Structure that has to use completely new ways to produce and use energy.

The next Step is easy to imagine. The Human Race will start to create new Mega-Cities on other Planets that will fuse into Mega-Planets.

The Big Problem will of course be Energy. We have to find new Sources all the time to support the Human Need to Expand and Discover. Every time when we create a new and Bigger Source of Energy the Amount of useless Heat will increase and the End of the Universe will get closer and closer.

Human Invention is Speeding Up the End because in the End Humans want to become One with the Whole.

According to the Second Law of Thermodynamics the Universe is moving to an Equilibrium State and not to an Extremely Impossible Innovative Configuration. At a Certain Point of Time Human Innovation has to Stop because we will reach the State of Absolute Zero Temperature and every Movement will Stop.

In the End the Universe will move into a State of Infinite Sleep.

What to Do?

The most important thing you can do when you want to Innovate is to create a Deep Understanding of just One Frame of Reference.

You have to become an Expert in Something and you have to have the attitude to create the Perfect Frame of Reference.

Every time when the System is not performing you have to solve the problem Inside the Box but you have to make use of Solutions that are Outside the Box.

Every Time when you are Satisfied,  remove a Constraint and Force Yourself to Solve the problem.

At a Certain Moment your Frame of Reference will Explode and will produce many Fragments. They are the Basic Building Blocks of Your Domain.

Start to Play with the Building Blocks and new Possibilities will appear that you have never Thought off.

You now have entered the Adjacent Possible.

LINKS

Why Neural Networks look like the Universe

About Creativity and High Pressure

About Self-Organized Criticallity

About Self-Organized Criticallity and Innovation

About Complexity Theory and Innovation

About Loosely Coupled Systems

About Boundaries

About Triz

Stuart Kaufmann about Radical Emergence

Advanced Systematic Inventive
Thinking

About ASIT (Advanced Systematic Inventive Thinking)

How Nature Plays

About Constructal Law

About the Origin of Good Ideas

About the Adjecent Possible

About the Law of Kleiber

Why Cities are Organisms

About the Beginning of the Universe

About  the End of the Universe