It is important for a person to understand not only what world he is in, but also how this world arose. Was there anything before the time and space that exists now. How life originated on his home planet, and the planet itself did not appear out of nowhere.
In the modern world, many theories have been put forward for the appearance of the Earth and the origin of life on it. For lack of a chance to test the theories of various scientists or religious worldviews, more and more different hypotheses arose. One of them, which will be discussed, is the hypothesis that supports stationary states. It was developed at the end of the 19th century and exists to this day.
Definition
The Steady State Hypothesis supports the view that the Earth did not form over time, but has always existed and constantly supported life. If the planet did change, then it was quite insignificant: species of animals and plants did not arise, and just likeplanet, have always been, and either died out or changed their numbers. This hypothesis was put forward by the German physician Thierry William Preyer in 1880.
Where did the theory come from?
It is currently impossible to determine the age of the Earth with absolute accuracy. According to a study based on the radioactive decay of atoms, the age of the planet is approximately 4.6 billion years. But this method is not perfect, which allows adepts to support the evidence provided by the steady state theory.
It is reasonable to call the followers of this hypothesis adepts, not scientists. According to modern data, eternism (this is how the theory of a stationary state is called) is more of a philosophical doctrine, since the postulates of followers are similar to the beliefs of Eastern religions: Judaism, Buddhism - about the existence of an eternal uncreated Universe.
Followers' views
Unlike religious teachings, adherents who support the theory of stationary states of all objects of the Universe have quite accurate ideas about their own views:
- Earth has always existed, as well as life on it. There was also no beginning of the Universe (denial of the Big Bang and similar hypotheses), it has always been.
- The modification occurs to a small extent and does not fundamentally affect the life of organisms.
- Any species has only two ways of development: change in numbers or extinction - species do not move into new forms, do not evolve, and do not even change significantly.
One of the most famous scientists supporting the hypothesis of stationarystate, was Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky. He liked to repeat the phrase: "… there was no beginning of life in the Cosmos that we observe, since there was no beginning of this Cosmos. The Universe is eternal, like life in it."
The theory of the stationary state of the Universe explains such unresolved questions as:
- age of clusters and stars,
- homogeneity and isotropy,
- relic radiation,
- redshift paradoxes for distant objects, around which scientific disputes still do not subside.
Evidence
The general evidence for a steady state is based on the idea that the disappearance of sediments (bones and waste products) in rocks can be explained by an increase in the size of a species or population, or the migration of representatives to an environment with a more favorable climate. Up to this point, the deposits were not preserved in the layers due to their complete decomposition. It is undeniable that in some types of soils the remains are actually preserved better, and in some worse or not at all.
According to followers, only the study of living species will help draw conclusions about extinction.
The most common evidence that stationary states exist is coelacanths. In the scientific community, they were cited as an example of a transitional species between fish and amphibians. Until recently, they were considered extinct around the end of the Cretaceous period - 60-70 million years ago. But in 1939, off the coast of about. Madagascar was caught live representative of coelacanths. Thus, now the coelacanth is no longer considered a transitional form.
The second proof is Archeopteryx. In biology textbooks, this creature is presented as a transitional form between reptiles and birds. It had plumage and could jump from branch to branch over long distances. But this theory collapsed when, in 1977, remains of birds undoubtedly older than the bones of Archeopteryx were found in Colorado. Hence the assumption is correct that Archeopteryx was neither a transitional form nor a first bird. At this point, the steady state hypothesis became a theory.
In addition to such striking examples, there are others. For example, the theory of a steady state is confirmed by the "extinct" and found in wildlife lingulas (marine brachiopods), tuataria, or tuatara (large lizard), solendons (shrews). Over millions of years, these species have not changed from their fossil ancestors.
Such paleontological "mistakes" are enough. Even now, scientists cannot say for sure which extinct species could be the predecessor of the living one. It was these gaps in paleontological teaching that led the adherents to the idea of the existence of a stationary state.
Status in the scientific community
But theories based on other people's mistakes are not accepted in scientific circles. Stationary states contradict modern astronomical research. Stephen Hawking in his book A Brief Historytime" notes that if the Universe really evolved in some "imaginary time", then there would be no singularities.
A singularity in the astronomical sense is a point through which it is impossible to draw a straight line. A striking example is a black hole - a region that even light moving at the maximum known speed cannot leave. The center of a black hole is considered to be a singularity - atoms compressed to infinity.
Thus, in the scientific community, such a hypothesis is a philosophical one, but its contribution to the development of other theories is important. Thus, the questions posed to archaeologists and paleontologists by the followers of Eternism force scientists to more carefully review their research and recheck scientific data.
Considering stationary states as a theory of the origin of life on Earth, we must not forget about the quantum meaning of this phrase, so as not to get confused in concepts.
What is quantum thermodynamics?
The first significant breakthrough in quantum thermodynamics was made by Niels Bohr, who published the three main postulates on which the vast majority of calculations and statements of today's physicists and chemists are based. Three postulates were perceived with skepticism, but it was impossible not to recognize them as true at that time. But what is quantum thermodynamics?
Thermodynamic form in both classical and quantum physics is a system of bodies that exchange internal energy with each other and withsurrounding bodies. It can consist of one body or several, and at the same time it is in states that are different in pressure, volume, temperature, etc.
In an equilibrium system, all parameters have a strictly fixed value, so it corresponds to an equilibrium state. Represents reversible processes.
In a non-equilibrium form, at least one parameter does not have a fixed value. Such systems are out of thermodynamic equilibrium, most often they represent irreversible processes, for example, chemical ones.
If we try to display the equilibrium state in the form of a graph, we will get a point. In the case of a non-equilibrium state, the graph will always be different, but not in the form of a point, due to one or more inaccurate values.
Relaxation is the process of transition from a non-equilibrium state (irreversible) to an equilibrium (reversible) state. The concepts of reversible and irreversible processes play an important role in thermodynamics.
Prigozhin's theorem
This is one of the conclusions of thermodynamics about non-equilibrium processes. According to him, in a stationary state of a linear nonequilibrium system, the production of entropy is minimal. With the complete absence of obstacles to achieving a state of equilibrium, the entropy value drops to zero. The theorem was proved in 1947 by the physicist I. R. Prigogine.
The meaning of it is that the equilibrium stationary state, to which the thermodynamic system tends, has as low an entropy production as the boundary conditions imposed on the system allow.
Prigozhin's statementproceeded from the theorem of Lars Onsager: for small deviations from equilibrium, the thermodynamic flow can be represented as a combination of the sums of linear driving forces.
Schrödinger's thought in its original form
The Schrödinger equation for stationary states has made a significant contribution to the practical observation of the wave properties of particles. If the interpretation of de Broglie waves and the Heisenberg uncertainty relation give a theoretical idea of the motion of particles in force fields, then Schrödinger's statement, written in 1926, describes the processes observed in practice.
In its original form, it looks like this.
where,
i - imaginary unit.
Schrödinger equation for stationary states
If the field in which the particle is located is constant in time, then the equation does not depend on time and can be represented as follows.
The Schrödinger equation for stationary states is based on Bohr's postulates concerning the properties of atoms and their electrons. It is considered one of the main equations of quantum thermodynamics.
Transition energy
When an atom is in a stationary state, no radiation occurs, but the electrons move with some acceleration. In this case, the electron states are determined on each orbital with the energy Et. Approximately its value can be estimated by the ionization potential of this electronic level.
SoThus, after the first statement, a new one appeared. Bohr's second postulate says: if during the motion of a negatively charged particle (electron) its angular momentum (L =mevr) is a multiple of the constant bar divided by 2π, then the atom is in a stationary state. That is: mevrn =n(h/2π)
From this statement, another follows: the energy of a quantum (photon) is the difference in the energies of the stationary states of atoms through which the quantum passes.
This value, calculated by Bohr and modified for practical purposes by Schrödinger, has made a significant contribution to the explanation of quantum thermodynamics.
Third Postulate
Bohr's third postulate - about quantum transitions with radiation also implies the stationary states of the electron. So, radiation in the transition from one to another is absorbed or emitted in the form of energy quanta. Moreover, the energy of the quanta is equal to the difference in the energies of the stationary states between which the transition takes place. Radiation occurs only when an electron moves away from the nucleus of an atom.
The third postulate was confirmed experimentally by the experiments of Hertz and Frank.
Prigogine's theorem explained the properties of entropy for nonequilibrium processes tending to equilibrium.
