History
In 1961, Ilya Prigogine, Russian-born Belgian chemist, used the term "biological thermodynamics". [1] In 1965, Russian thermodynamicist Karl Trincher published the short 93-page booklet Biology and Information: Elements of Biological Thermodynamics, in which he discussed concepts such as negentropy, the inapplicability of Prigogine’s theorem to embryogenesis, thermogenesis, among other topics. [2] In 2001, British-born American biophysicist Donald Haynie published one of the first standardized teaching textbooks on biological thermodynamics, deriving from his PhD dissertation on the thermodynamics of protein folding, a book now in its second edition (2008). [3]
Naming issues
See main: Thermodynamics (naming)
At present, in addition to the name "biological thermodynamics", the subject of thermodynamics in biology goes by various near-similar names such as bioenergetics, biothermodynamics, or biochemical thermodynamics, each having near synonymous overlap of material. The term "biological thermodynamics", for example, can refer to both the thermodynamics inside of biological objects, such as within a cell, as well as between biological objects, such as between a hawk and a dove (such as was discussed by American chemist Alfred Latoka in the 1920s), or the interactions between an organism and its environment. The cover of American biophysicist Donald Haynie's 2001 textbook Biological Thermodynamics (above), for instance, seems to imply that the subject has something to do with a lizard, moving about, being heated by the sun, whereas the book mostly focuses on protein thermodynamics, a subject that could fall under the category of either of the above names. [3]
References
1. Prigogine, Ilya. (1961). Thermodynamics of Irreversible Processes, (pgs. v, 3). New York: Interscience Publishers.
2. Trincher, Karl, S. (1965). Biology and Information: Elements of Biological Thermodynamics. Consultants Bureau.
3. Haynie, Donald. (2001). Biological Thermodynamics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Further reading
● Lotka, Alfred J. (1926). Elements of Physical Biology. New York: Dover.
● Morowitz, Harold J. (1970). Entropy for Biologists - an Introduction to Thermodynamics. New York: Academic Press.
● Hammes, Gordon G. (2000). Thermodynamics and Kinetics for the Biological Sciences. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
● Di-Cera, Enrico. (2000). Thermodynamics in Biology. Oxford University Press.
External links
● Gibbs Society of Biological Thermodynamics - University of Virginia.
