68 ORGANIC FUNCTIONING 



The energy that propels a steamship is that represented by 

 the fuel. This fuel is burned so that heat at, say, i,ooo° C. 

 is continually being generated in the furnaces and as continually 

 flowing away. Actually some of it transforms into the mechanical 

 energy of the engines, but whatever happens in the paths of the 

 transferences and transformations of the heat the final phase is 

 the same : heat, at (say) approximately 15° C. enters the ocean 

 and atmosphere. So we have the result, for any small quantity 

 of the heat that flows away from the furnace into, say, the 

 ocean — 



Initial entropy = — — — ^ + C ; 



^•^ 1000° + 273° 



(C being a constant of unknown value.) 



Final entropy = — + C ; 



15 +273 



and, obviously the entropy associated with O has increased.] 



22/. Dissipated Energy. That quantity of energy repre- 

 sented by the burned fuel still exists. But now it is dissipated, 

 and tends further to be dissipated, throughout the ocean, the 

 atmosphere and cosmic space. It cannot be utilized (that is, 

 by human control) and so it has become unavailable {for human 

 purposes). It is energy that has become disorganized. In the 

 ocean are immense reservoirs of heat-energy that man cannot 

 utilize. It is quite conceivable that organisms of sizes approximate 

 to those of molecules (endowed, as Clerk Maxwell says, with 

 powers that are finite) might utilize this energy of low-tempera- 

 ture, disorganized heat and it is possible that micro-organisms 

 may utilize it. 



But macroscopic organisms, such as man, do not use energy 

 that has been dissipated, or degraded, in the above sense. In 

 all transformations that proceed in the course of organic function- 

 ing dissipation occurs. It is true that the tendency of plant 

 metabolism is to retard the process of dissipation, but it is also 

 true that in all metabolic processes dissipation ultimately occurs, 

 even though it is retarded in some cases. 



22a. Irreversible Energy-Transformations. Thus entropy 

 increases in all physical changes known to us — 



The Entropy of the Universe tends towards a maximum value. 

 That means that physical changes occur in one direction — in 



