文档介绍：Life in the Universe
In this talk, I would like to speculate a little, on the development of life in
the universe, and in particular, the development of intelligent life. I shall
take this to include the human race, even though much of its behaviour
through out history, has been pretty stupid, and not calculated to aid the
survival of the species. Two questions I shall discuss are, 'What is the
probability of life existing else where in the universe?' and, 'How may life
develop in the future?'
It is a matter mon experience, that things get more disordered and chaotic with time.
This observation can be elevated to the status of a law, the so-called Second Law of
Thermodynamics. This says that the total amount of disorder, or entropy, in the universe,
always increases with time. However, the Law refers only to the total amount of disorder. The
order in one body can increase, provided that the amount of disorder in its surroundings
increases by a greater amount. This is what happens in a living being. One can define Life to
be an ordered system that can sustain itself against the tendency to disorder, and can
reproduce itself. That is, it can make similar, but independent, ordered systems. To do these
things, the system must convert energy in some ordered form, like food, sunlight, or electric
power, into disordered energy, in the for