Fourth Thermodynamic Principle
= "the Maximum Em-Power Principle".
URL = http://www.ordinality.org/
Description
1. the Maximum Em-Power Principle
"In 2002 Corrado Giannantoni succeeded in giving a very general mathematical formulation of the Maximum Em-Power Principle (H. T. Odum, early 1990s), generally considered as being the Fourth Thermodynamic Principle. This was made possible by means of the introduction of a new concept of “derivative” (termed as “Incipient” derivative) and, consequently, a new Differential Calculus (the Incipient Differential Calculus or IDC).
As an immediate consequence, from 2002 on he has progressively intensified his activity of diffusion of new Mathematical Methods (Intensive and Incipient Fractional Calculus) for the solution to non-linear differential equations and their direct applications in several fields (from Quantum Mechanics to Celestial Mechanics, from Thermodynamics to Electromagnetism, etc.). In addition, he has progressively shown the significant advantages of IDC when dealing with multi-phase Policy Models based on any number of Thermodynamic, Economic, Environmental and Juridical Indicators.
In January 2010 (Sixth Emergy Conference, Gainesville, USA) he proposed a generalized version of the Maximum Em-Power Principle. In fact, on the basis of the new concept of “incipient” derivative, both Emergy and Transformity can be replaced by the concept of Ordinality.
The principle can be thus renamed as the Maximum Ordinality Principle. Its corresponding enunciation then becomes: “Every System tends to Maximize its own Ordinality, including that of the surrounding habitat”."
2. The Maximum Ordinality Principle:
"The Maximum Ordinality Principle is the re-proposition of the Maximum Em-Power Principle (Odum, 1994), once deprived of any “residual” reference to traditional concepts of Classical Thermodynamics (such as Energy, Exergy and so on). Such a reformulation might thus appear, at a first glance, as being a sort of “dissonance” with respect to the previous formulations of the Maximum Em-Power Principle, both in steady state and dynamic conditions. Vice versa, in this way the real novelty of the Maximum Em-Power Principle emerges in a much clearer way, by contributing to give a more “harmonious” picture of the surrounding world. This is because classical quantities (such as Energy, Exergy and so on) simply represent a mere cardinal reflex of Generative Processes persistently evolving toward the Maximum Ordinality. Such a re-formulation, on the other hand, is already implicit in the same Rules of Emergy Algebra, which represent one of the most important contributions to modern Science over the last four centuries. This is because they introduce a renewed concept of Quality which is able to transform any scientific aspect”, including the same Principles of Classical Thermodynamics.
A preliminary analogy between the two Principles can be recognized from their pertaining verbal enunciations. In fact the Maximum Em-Power Principle (Odum H. T., 1994a, b, c), given in one of the equivalent forms, states that:
“Every System reaches its maximum possible organization when maximizing the flow of Emergy involved in the process, including that of its surrounding habitat.”
The introduction of the concept of “Incipient Derivative” enabled us to reformulate the Maximum
Em-Power Principle in a more general form, by replacing the concepts of Emergy and Transformity with the concept of Ordinality. The principle can thus be renamed as the Maximum Ordinality Principle, because its the corresponding verbal enunciation then becomes:
“Every System tends to Maximize its own Ordinality, including that of the surrounding habitat.”
(http://www.ordinality.org/the-maximum-ordinality-principle/)
Excerpt
Howard Odum:
"The systems concepts were developed during the Second World War including meteorology. In the post-war university there was much discussion of systems information and energy and a very remarkable book published earlier, Physical Biology, by Alfred Lotka -- Hutchinson put me onto it.
The principles of thermodynamics include three laws, and Lotka proposed a fourth one.
I realized as a graduate student then, that this was the explanation of nearly everything. It was called the maximum power principle. The self-organizing processes that you have in the forest or in a chemical solution or in the stars or in human affairs, the systems that prevail are those that, as first priority, pull in the most available energy resources, and as second priority, use them efficiently to make all the processes perform at the maximum. And people say, well why? Why should that be? Well, it is natural selection, but not just on an organismal level. I mean, in addition to selecting organisms, natural selection chooses system design, including all the components of a system, whether it be people interacting or birds and trees interacting. There are all kinds of connections that could be made, and the ones that reinforce are selected. For example, when the bees pollinate the flowers, that reinforces both the bees and the flowers. It is a closed loop reinforcement, and therefore that design takes over. I do not understand why so much of science, and particularly ecological people, have trouble with understanding the maximum power principle. And we have changed it and refined it, and we now call it the maximum empower principle.
* B: Does man not have an advantage, an unfair advantage, in this system that you just described?
O: Humans are suffered on this earth as long as they feed back and reinforce their environment. That is the message that is gradually getting out. So what do the humans do for the environment, for the whole world, that was not there before? Well, they are information processors, both as individuals and also in their social mechanisms that their culture developed, so that they collectively can have this fantastic information development. That is why people are reinforcing the earth. Of course, information civilization has a temporary pulse from using fossil fuels, but on a longer scale, the pulse is part of a repeating pattern.
There are a bunch of corollaries that we have learned about all systems that are part of the energy hierarchy concept. Systems store energies and then use them in a pulse, and that gives more performance. An earthquake gets more done than if the plates of the earth moved gradually all the time. They would not get as much done as by building up a strain and then releasing it with a sudden surge. We find pulsing in the molecules, the cells of organisms, in ladies with pregnancies, and human sleep; pulsing is the normal pattern to plan for. The world is using the sustainable steady state model where growth builds up and levels off. And that came out of ecology earlier, and that is Cowles' model. It is not correct. Systems build up and have a consumption pulse, and then they reset and do it again. I think most ecologists now are coming to realize that. Other colleagues contributed to that consensus such as C.S Holling."
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More information
audio links:
- Part 2 here: https://original-ufdc.uflib.ufl.edu/AA00020190/00001