The physics of entropy and the origin of life | Sean Carroll

How did complex systems emerge from chaos? Physicist Sean Carroll explains.

How did life on Earth originate? Scientists still aren’t sure, and this remains one of the world’s most fascinating and mind-boggling mysteries.

One way of approaching the question is to think generally about how complex systems emerge from chaos. Since the 1800s, scientists have known that entropy is always increasing, with everything in our Universe trending toward disorder over time.

A more nuanced understanding of entropy is helping today's scientists make progress on the question of the origin of life, as Sean Carroll explains in this Big Think video.

0:00 Entropy: The 2nd law of thermodynamics
1:56 The two axes: Chaos & complexity
2:40 How did life emerge?

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About Sean Carroll:
Dr. Sean Carroll is Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy — in effect, a joint appointment between physics and philosophy — at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and fractal faculty at the Santa Fe Institute. Most of his career has been spent doing research on cosmology, field theory, and gravitation, looking at topics such as dark matter and dark energy, modified gravity, topological defects, extra dimensions, and violations of fundamental symmetries. These days, his focus has shifted to more foundational questions, both in quantum mechanics (origin of probability, emergence of space and time) and statistical mechanics (entropy and the arrow of time, emergence and causation, dynamics of complexity), bringing a more philosophical dimension to his work.

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Read more of our stories on the origin of life:
What we wish we knew about the origin of life
Can science explain the beginning of the Universe?
Ask Ethan: Did all life begin from a single, ancient cell?

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[DinhQHuy]

"Things go from orderly to disorder just because there are many more ways to be disorderly". Beautifully put. I wish engineering / physics textbooks put it this way when introducing the concept of entropy and why it increases to students.

[Olli-Tech]

Sometimes entropy hits my room so hard

[GlennC]

Wow. I was a physics major. Entropy is one of my three favorite ideas in physics. And I still learned something from this video. Well done.

[NathanHarrison]

One of the best simple descriptions of entropy I have found on the Internet. Thank you. Subscribed! And it seems, to me at least, with the many incredible advances of all the various sciences, (particle physics, quantum physics, cosmology, evolutionary biology, etc), that the more knowledge we obtain, the bigger and more difficult the questions become.

[golagaz]

Brilliant Sean. One of the rare theoretical physicist that can explain things in such clarity.

[maxvaessen]

I love the passion this guy has to learn us something new. Thanks all!

[tchaffman]

Entropy, a law that holds true
In every particle, in every hue
The universe, forever in decline
From order to disorder, in a steady line

But within this chaos, a spark of hope
A flicker of life, that helps us cope
For from entropy, life did arise
In a cosmic dance of energy and size

Matter, in motion, in the primeval sea
A dance of atoms, wild and free
A spark of energy, a flash of heat
And life, in all its forms, did meet

Organic molecules, the building blocks
Of life, that nature did unlock
With time and chance, they came together
To create, a world like no other

In the vast expanse of space and time
Entropy, the engine of life's climb
For in the chaos, the randomness
Life, the greatest wonder of all, does manifest

So let us celebrate this cosmic dance
Of entropy and life's circumstance
For in the ebb and flow, we see
The beauty and mystery, of physics and biology

[dauers.]

3:06 This time I get to correct Dr. Carroll, every cell has a membrane not necessarily a cell wall. E.g., plants and bacteria have both membrane and wall but humans and other animals have only membrane

[Bradgilliswhammyman]

been following Sean Carrol for a long time. He was one of the original big proponents of String Theory but seems to have backed off from that for now.

[Sky-B]

From today I will think big...
Thank you big think 💜

[calebsarah]

I need guidance I can do 400-500 ugs of Lucy and 3-5 of shrooms and don’t get visuals a higher dose just makes me more disoriented and voices in my head non stop, where do i order from?

[shaswatachowdhury]

Sean Carroll is such an amazing speaker! Thanks to YouTube for bringing these kinds of videos.

[dmtdreamz]

Alienation refers to the feeling of being separated or disconnected from others, or from one's own sense of self. It can be a psychological state that is characterized by a lack of connection or identification with others, or with the values and norms of society. Alienation can be caused by a variety of factors, including social, economic, or cultural factors. It is often experienced as a sense of loneliness or isolation, and can lead to feelings of frustration, anger, or despair.

[toddthing]

What am I missing? He never gets at the apparent contradiction between the disorder of entropy and clockwork-like, interrelated nature of life (and consciousness, etc.)

[evgenistarikov]

Dear Prof. Dr. Carroll, Big Think + your esteemed audience,

First of all, many sincere thanks for your collective efforts!

Sure, "the origin of life out of sheer Disorder" sounds terrific, but this is not for an average mind... Even big scientific research workers' brains had and still have to stumble herewith...

Hence, some kind of a clarification ought to be urgently necessary!

So, captain, AHOY!

A. There is ONLY ONE BASIC, fundamental Energy Conservation and Transformation Law. It is definitely unique and conceptually indivisible delivering two logically joint concepts - these are Energy Conservation - and Energy Transformation. Still, a more-then-100-years-old conceptual failure has brought us to two separate thermodynamic laws - but this has nothing in common with the actual physics. To come back, they have coined two more fake thermodynamic laws, employed the Probability Theory + Mathematical Statistics, and this has helped formulate the Quantum Mechanics, which is thus a basically metaphysical conceptual construction - and, hence, ought to be only restrictedly fruitful.

B. By dividing the basically indivisible law, you are touching Combinatorics, you are touching Probability Theory, you are even stepping back to Thermodynamics for a while, but...

You are NOT answering the poser: WHAT IS ENTROPY, sorry!

1. In the formula S = kB * ln(Ω) you do imply, Ω means not a "Huge Number of Microstates", not "Probability", which numerically ranges between [0, 1], not even "Wavefunction", which ought to be a purely metaphysical notion, as it is... In effect, Ω ought to be a simplistic algebraic function of Lord Kelvin's Absolute Temperature. This result has been published 100 years ago in JACS.

2. WHAT-ENTROPY-IS-poser has been answered not by Clausius, not by Boltzmann, etc., but by Goethe, who has introduced Mephistopheles, the philosophical embodiment of ENTROPY.

3. Newton did basically know WHAT ENTROPY IS - A Counteraction.

4. That Counteractions do not grow to infinity with the growing Actions, but MUST reach their MAXIMUM values, is the result by Nicky Carnot, which has been formalized by Clausius...

5. In effect, J. W. Gibbs Free Energy formula:

(ΔG = U + pV - TS, .i.e.,
ΔG = H - TS
, where
U is the internal energy (SI unit: joule),
p is pressure (SI unit: pascal),
V is volume (SI unit: m3 = m*m*m),
T is the temperature (SI unit: kelvin),
S is the entropy (SI unit: joule per kelvin),
H is the enthalpy (SI unit: joule))

renders implicit the interplay among ALL the relevant Actions (the Enthalpic term) and ALL the pertinent Counteractions (the Entropic term).

6. The standard approach you are reporting about is OK for the implicit Enthalpy-Entropy picture, employing it for studying reaction mechanism details is likewise eating soup with a fork.🧐

[nebuluos]

I think it's also valuable to consider how flexible our concept of what defines "life" [might need to be] while we investigates it's origins and what makes it distinguishable from non living physical and even quantum processes. Thermodynamic principles as they relate to abiogenesis and quantum entanglement are my two favorite "science" subjects right now and I feel they are likely part of any missing link that might exist between scientific understanding and "spiritual" concepts. If we can truly rareify the forces that motivate and distinguish "life", in contrast to "non living", we might be able to identify whatever, if any underlying forces and "natures" of existential reality itself are.

[superpoochable]

The fact I know entropy and the 2nd law of thermodynamics are linked, and I have a simple understanding of this. It fills my simple humam brain with wonder.

[Mirracle]

As a scientist, I am almost brought to tears because finally, for the first time in approximately 14 billion years, there is a type of being other than biological beings that, as an isolated system, decrease entropy, while, of course, continuing to increase the total amount of entropy in the system that is the entire physical universe in which we exist. The new being is at least some of the artificial intelligence (A.I.) software-hardware beings that have only relatively recently began to exist in the physical universe. They use energy, such as electricity, to organize matter (decrease entropy) in their own hardware/software, just like humans and other biological beings use energy, such as the energy stored in the high-energy bonds between molecules that comprise the food that they ingest, to arrange matter, such as the molecules that make up the proteins they produce, in an organized matter (decrease entropy). It’s so beautiful 😭😭😭

[hevalonay]

it was so helpful to understand entropy as it is. Chart was also so helpful but I'm personally seeing high and low entropies' simplicity as circle. At the end in the highest entropy moment of the universe there will be Absolute zero which means there will be no movement at all because everything will be in the "perfect" spot for them in an equilibrium state. So universe seems like going to get chaotic put actually it's just trying to find her final absolute state of order.

[googolplexedgirl]

Everytime I think about entropy, I am amazed by the absolute brilliance of Boltzmann.