Question

Short / Long answer type questions .
What does entropy mean? How does a living organism cope with entropy?

Answer 1

Entropy is a state variable which measures the disorder of a system or the amount of energy available to be used. Greater is the randomness of a system, greater is its entropy.

The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy, a measure of disorder, increases during any spontaneous process in an isolated system.

We can view the entire universe as an isolated system, leading to the conclusions that the entropy of the universe is tending to be maximum. However, all living things maintain a highly ordered, low entropy structure.

Life is not an isolated system, it is very far from it. Life is a completely open system, where both energy and matter continuously flows in and out. Food is processed to provide energy to the cells, to move the muscles, to repair things that break down all of the time inside our bodies. So in conclusion, by a constant input of energy living organisms cope with entropy.