Eric Schneider's and Dorion Sagan's book 'Into the Cool' is a profound book in many respects. Its main message is that life is energy-based, more specifically based on energy flow (gradient). Together with genetic inheritance (reproduction) the two make life predictable and expected natural phenomenon.
In his well-known essay 'The Two Cultures,' C.P. Snow famously remarked that an inability to describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics was a form of ignorance comparable with never having read a work of Shakespeare. It's fair to say that these days, the Second Law gets far less press than the Bard. Enter Into the Cool , in which the authors claim that the study of thermodynamics (in some ways the neglected stepchild of the sciences) can inform our understanding of biology, ecology and even economics. The authors (Schneider is an authority on thermodynamics; Sagan is a science writer and author of Acquiring Genomes ) begin by rephrasing the Second Law—as 'Nature abhors a gradient'—and proceed to illustrate its relevance to large systems in general. Whether one is considering the difference between heat and cold or between inflated prices and market values, they argue, we can apply insights from thermodynamics and entropy to understand how systems tend toward equilibrium. The result is an impressive work that ranges across disciplinary boundaries and draws from disparate literatures without blinking. It's also a book that (much like Shakespeare and the Second Law of Thermodynamics) requires effort on the reader's part—it's not for casual reading. 30 b&w illus. Agent, Georges Borchardt. (June)
- This eBook is no longer available for sale. Heating and Cooling of Buildings: Principles and Practice of Energy Efficient Design, Third Edition is structured to provide a rigorous and comprehensive technical foundation and coverage to all the various elements inherent in the design of energy.
- This program starts with an exploration of potential and kinetic energy and moves into a discussion of the. Ask New Question. It also takes energy to cool an object below its surrounding temperature. Therefore asking 'is cold a form of energy' is like asking 'is bland a form of delicious.
Release date: 06/01/2005
Genre: Nonfiction
