In human thermodynamics, Georgi Pavlovich Gladyshev, born September 19, 1936 in Alma-Ata, is Russian physical chemist and thermodynamicist known for his Gibbs free energy thermodynamic theory of evolution and for his thermodynamic anti-aging theories of foodstuffs. [1] His seminal article is the 1978 "On the Thermodynamics of Biological Evolution" published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, in which the methods of classical thermodynamics, applied through the construct of hierarchical thermodynamics, are argued to regulate the process of the evolution of biological structure. [2]

This theory was written in direct opposition to the non-equilibrium thermodynamic evolution theory of Belgian chemist Ilya Prigogine, who had previously won the 1977 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his dissipative structure evolution theory in which biological structure is argued to self-assemble in thermodynamic systems far from equilibrium through the method of bifurcations and fluctuations. [3]

Beginning in 2005, Gladyshev began collaborating with American chemical engineer Libb Thims in the exchange of ideas and development of new theory. Gladyshev was of great influence to Thims, especially in construction and subsequent publication of his first two books, the 2007 Human Chemistry and the 2008 The Human Molecule. In December 2007, Thims and Gladyshev started the Encyclopedia of Human Thermodynamics.

Thermodynamic theory of the evolution of living beings
In 1997, Gladyshev published, in English, the 142-page book Thermodynamic Theory of the Evolution of Living Beings, in which he set forth the first unified theory of the origin and evolution of living beings from the view point of thermodynamics, built on the chemical thermodynamics work of American mathematical engineer Willard Gibbs. [1] The essential features or postulates of Gladyshev’s theory are:

(a) That biological evolution is an irreversible process, characterized as a documented historical variation of life with respect to a given evolution timescale.
(b) That light, acoustic and magnetic fields, mechanical torsions, smells, and psychological stresses initiate the reaction of biological objects and determine their behavior.
(c) That optical activity of biological substances the principle peculiarity of the living world.
(d) That biospheric “thermostats”, or time-delineated surrounding mediums of relative constant compositions, temperatures, and pressures, exist owing to the periodic, diurnal, and cyclical nature of earth dynamics over the last 4.5 billion years.
(e) That thermostats can be used as a criterion for the identification of biospheric subsystems (within systems) in states of micro-evolution or system chemical reaction evolutions.
(f) That a law of temporal hierarchies exists such that any living system of any temporal hierarchical level in a normal state has a "thermostat", which is a surrounding medium that is characterized by slightly changing average values of thermodynamic parameters.
(g) That the definition of the “thermodynamic system” is that which is temporally surrounded by a "thermostat".
(h) That systems are arranged in “hierarchies”, such that a “principle of substance stability” characterizes the movement of substance between systems owing to variations in stabilities of the molecular substances.
(i) That the definition of ΔG is the energetic measure of system structure formation in a given system evolution relaxation window.
(j) That only the initial and final states of a process under study are of interest.
(k) That the variations of the Gibbs function of the system, at any stage of evolution, particularly ontogenesis and philogenesis (where ontogenesis, meaning the development of the individual, represents a curtailed repetition of philogenesis, or the development of the race or species), can be calculated by thermodynamic methods.
(l) That a function Gsystem-formation = f(t), can be obtained using thermodynamical data, thus representing the “state” of the system at a fixed moment in time.
(m) That variations of calculations of ΔG characterize stability changes in the system.
(n) That this outline, being consistent and unified to that of logic of standard physical chemistry, quantifies the physical essence of the evolution tendency and is the “general law” (combined law of thermodynamics) that Charles Darwin postulated as that which determines the principles of life.

These logic constitute what Gladyshev calls "hierarchical thermodynamics". This theory, to note, was in direct contrast to the more-established 1970s paradigm of the far-from-equilibrium dissipative structure theory of Belgian chemist Ilya Prigogine, who developed an “internal entropy” generation function model to account for the appearance of spontaneously forming ordered structures in the high heat flow regime of viscous mediums, such as the formation of Bénard cells in silicon oil placed on a hot plate, in which the heat is turned up past the turbulent flow regime.

Gladyshev's living systems evolution model
During the process of the evolution of the earth, according to Gladyshev, the existence of local equilibrium, within sub-systems of the biosphere, each being found surrounded by isothermal and isobaric thermostats, means that at times comparable with the periods of relaxation to equilibrium we deal with a set of thermodynamically closed microvolumes, i.e. an elementary volume that is still so large that it contains a great number of particles, constituting the phase under consideration. Within this phase, according to the laws of chemical thermodynamics, the integral value of the specific, i.e. averaged over the volume, Gibbs function corresponding to the formation of averaged local “evolved” conformation of aggregated supramolecular structures achieves a minimum:

Here, V is the volume of the system, m the mass of the selected microvolumes; x, y, and z the coordinates; the bar "–" means that the specific value is considered and the tilde "~" symbol indicating a heterogeneous system; the "im" superscript indicating the intermolecular component of the system.

See also

• Gladyshev: Biography

References
1. Gladyshev, Georgi, P. (1997). Thermodynamic Theory of the Evolution of Living Beings. Commack, New York: Nova Science Publishers.
2. Gladyshev, Georgi, P. (1978). "On the Thermodynamics of Biological Evolution", Journal of Theoretical Biology, Vol. 75, Issue 4, Dec 21, pp. 425-441 (Preprint, Chernogolovka, Institute of Chem. Phys. Academy of Science of USSR, May, 1977, p. 46).
3. Prigogine, Ilya. (1977). "Time, Structure, and Fluctuations", Nobel Lecture (in chemistry), Dec 08.

Further reading
● Newspaper interview (1999) with Prof. Georgi P. Gladyshev (correspondent Mr. A. Gubanov).
● Gladyshev, Georgi P. (2007). “Leonhard Euler’s Methods and Ideas Live in the Thermodynamics Hierarchical Theory of Biological Evolution.” International Journal of Applied Mathematics and Statistics, Nov., Vol. 11, No. N07, pgs. 52-68.

External links

• Georgi Gladyshev - Biography Overview
• Georgi Gladyshev - A4M Conference Library, Speaker Profile
• Georgi Gladyshev - My Science Life, A Wetpaint Wiki