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Cosmology and Organic Evolution The Space Congress® Proceedings 1966 (3rd) The Challenge of Space Mar 7th, 8:00 AM Cosmology and Organic Evolution Minas Ensanian Bell Aerosystems Company - A Textron Company Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.erau.edu/space-congress-proceedings Scholarly Commons Citation Ensanian, Minas, "Cosmology and Organic Evolution" (1966). The Space Congress® Proceedings. 4. https://commons.erau.edu/space-congress-proceedings/proceedings-1966-3rd/session-2/4 This Event is brought to you for free and open access by the Conferences at Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Space Congress® Proceedings by an authorized administrator of Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. COSMOLOGY AND ORGANIC EVOLUTION Minas Ensanian Bell Aerosystems Company - A Textron Company Buffalo, New York. Summary The Physical Universe In keeping with the Einstein concept of uni­ Expansion fied fields, a general cosmological problem (GCP) is proposed which requires not only a physical The concept of a cyclic universe as envisioned basis for the unification of gravitation and elec- by Tolman,^ Opik^ and others, has considerable tromagnetism but the incorporation as well of the epistemological appeal since not only have we re­ origin and dynamics of the phenomer^pn of organic duced the number of so-called unanalyzables , but evolution-for the case of a living system existing Time is no longer infinite and only refers to a in Opik's oscillating universe* succession of events. The total duration of a To effect this unification, the assumption cycle (Opik) is of the order of 30,000 million must be made that in its final analysis the uni­ years, and in the compressed state the radius of verse consists of a single entity viz*, a subquan- this primordial mass would be equal to about the turn mechanical "ether" referred to as "cosmic en­ orbit of Mars with the nuclear fluid weighing tropy" and all events in the physical universe about 2$0 million tons per cubic centimeter. At constitute perturbations in the local field of the ryr-faqopt < M.*n& thft rtver^p"0 ^^nsl.tv ^rho) of this fundamental continuum or entity. Using a mtter ir sp^^f is abont, 10-^ crrp n*n^, hypothetical model cell, an attempt is made to derive a biophysical analog of the Einstein rela­ Ether tion E = MC 2 and which under certain boundary con­ ditions reduces to a similar form* One can effect Although the theory refrained from an in­ the solution (GCP) by simply defining the living vestigation of the medium in which the electro­ process as the annihilation of infinitesimal quan­ magnetic event occurred, the Lorentz invariance tities of matter and Life as the production of was the most important aspect of special rela­ cosmic entropy* Organic evolution therefore is a tivity. In general relativity however, Einstein'1 natural consequence in the effort to increase the made the following comment: "According to the efficiency of the conversion process. general theory of relativity space is endowed with physical qualities; in this sense, there­ General Gosmological Problem fore, an ether exists. In accordance with the general theory of relativity, space without an From one philosophic platform, the (GCP) may ether is inconceivable* For, in such space there be viewed as comprising three quantities viz., would not only be no propagation of light, but Entities (mass, energy, space and time), Processes no possibility of the existence of scales and (oscillating universe and the origin and course of clocks, and therefore no spatio-temporal distan­ organic evolution) and Fields (gravitational, ces in the physical sense. But this ether must nuclear, magnetic and electric) although the latter not be thought of as endowed with the properties may be considered under entities and the problem characteristic of ponderable media, as composed defined as the identification of the unifying of particles the motion of which can be followed; principle and its mathematical form. The most im­ nor may the concept of motion be applied to it." portant consequence of the proposition is that a correspondence and or parallelism is assumed to Gravitation exist between the so-called cosmological forces of the expanding universe and the origin and dy­ It has been noted by Bohnr that a steel namics of the phenomenon of organic evolution* cable having the diameter of the earth would not This implies that at Time-Zero (Lema^tre's 2 atome be strong enough to hold the earth in its orbit primitif), the forces which would eventually around the sun* Gravitational interactions re­ give rise to the phenomena of organic evolution, main the least understood for the following were present along with those responsible for the reasons* In the hydrogen atom the gravitational present observed expansion. force between the electron and the proton is On the assumption that the unification of 5 x 10*^0 that of. the electrostatic interaction, gravitation and electromagnetism may eventually and therefore on a per particle basis compared proceed via an Einsteinian metric, we are left with other forces it is extremely weak. Gravi­ with the problem of mathematically defining Life. tational fields are unidirectional and experi­ Before proceeding however, to develop the prin­ mentally a qualitative distinction separates ciple hypothesis, it is of interest to review gravitation and electromagnetism, since there certain aspects of the nature of the physical is no way to so alter the properties of a body universe. (matter) so that it may move through a 95 gravitational field as if the field were not pre­ concentration on the position of chemical equi­ sent. The gravitational field is steady and con­ librium are summarized by the principle of tinuous and does not appear to be associated Le Chatelier^* Klemensiewicz^3j on the basis with the expenditure of energy. Bodies that move of this principle, has made a generalisation in a gravitational field do not reduce the in­ which he refers to as the biological principle tensity of the field. From the point of view of resulting from his analysis of natural and ar­ Mach's" principle, the inertial mass of a par­ tificial stabilization. He concluded that ticle is determined by distant matter, i.e. Le Chatelier's principle could be taken as a acceleration is not relative to empty space. general guide to the behavior of systems in This differs from Einstein's theory where in­ equilibrium not because there is an inherent ertial mass is purely a property of the local tendency in the nature of things for stable curvature. However, there may be solutions to systems only to be created, but because unstable Einstein's field equations that are compatible ones, if formed, had little chance for survival. with Mach*3 principle. All of these principles are a reflection of the well known variational principle so fundamental to theoretical physics, and a summary has been made by Cox^ with reference to irreversible The purpose of the field theories upon processes. which Einstein spent the last thirty years of It is of interest to note that all so- his life was to effect the synthesis between called theories of non-equilibrium thermodyna­ general relativity and quantum mechanics or put mics refer to states not far removed from in another way by beginning with a field, con­ equilibrium yet have produced important results, struct a satisfactory theory of matter which, that is because of the applicability of linear among other things, would explain the asymmetry laws, and is the subject of a number of inter­ of electrical charge. To Einstein the idea of a esting discussions^**16,17 0 continuous field combined with that of material points discontinuous in space appeared incon­ Hypothetical Model Cell sistent. Another factor of great importance that must be mentioned was Heiseriberg's Principle The hypothetical model cell (HMS) refers which led to a renunciation of causality in the for theoretical convenience to the smallest or atomic domain. In an attempt to bridge the gap simplest of living organisms existing in Opik's between micro and macrophysics, Eddington' dis** oscillating universe. Recently Morowitz^ has covered that certain combinations of the uni­ referred to the pleuropneumonia-like organisms versal constants gave dimensionless numbers, as among the smallest autonomous self^replica-* which indicated that the strength of gravita­ ting entities found and having diameters in the tional interaction is related to both the scale order of 1$00 X, a volume of 1.7 fo10 cm3 of the universe and the strength of strong and a non«aqueous mass of 5 x 10"*^ g or atomic interactions. Jordan^, holding that our 3 x 10° molecular weight units. Taking the knowledge of the macroscopic universe resides average molecular weight of the biological raa«* in six constants, also discovered combinations terial as 8 he obtained 3«75 x 10' atoms. however, which equal unity. If future unified Based on biochemical data, Morowitz has cal«* field theories are to retain the plurality, i.e. culated a minimal ijinit with a diameter of both the continuum and the concept of quantiza~ 8I|0 A. Schrodinger , by means of the /n" tion, then it would appear that the field was law has questioned the validity of statis** the manifestation of a more fundamental entity, tical laws within the domain of the living thereby rendering it to a passive role. cell and expects to find new principles in view of the construction of the cell being Thermodynami c s different from anything as yet tested in the physical laboratory. Equilibrium is the static and time inva~ riant state of a system where no spontaneous Chemical Information Theory processes take place and all macroscopic quan­ tities remain unchanged and applies to so-called Equation (1) represents an oversimpli­ "closed systems".
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