ABSTRACT
The proper study of biology should start from thermodynamic principles. In fact, energy and its transformations may be viewed as the central theme which can best systematize biological facts and theory. Thermodynamics is the branch of science that deals with energy, its transformations, and the energy changes that accompany physical, chemical, and biological processes. In the latter part of the 19th century, there was considerable interest among the early founders of thermodynamics as to the direction of spontaneous chemical reactions. The Josiah Willard Gibbs free energy is the useful energy that can be derived from a chemical reaction occurring under constant temperature and constant pressure conditions. Development of mathematical formulations to describe the tendency toward randomness dominated much of theoretical thermodynamics in the 19th century. Living cells are constantly exchanging mass and energy with their surrounding environment and are open systems from a thermodynamic standpoint.
