Boltzmann’s Dynamics on the Primitive Earth about 3.8 Billion Years Ago

Abstract

An evolutionary significant event that could have happened on the primitive earth would be a process of enhancing energy concentrations locally Once the concentrated energy be released, it could drive various molecular association and dissociation We have examined, both theoretically and experimentally, a possibility of forming such microscopic heat engines feeding upon the then available thermal environment Theoretically, Boltzmann's dynamics of molecules that would lose their memory of pas collisions with others is found to uphold those molecules that could feed upon thermal energy if the thermal environment would fluctuate through, for instance, a diurnal cycle Experimentally, thermal heterocomplex molecules from amino acids, that could have been ubiquitous on the primitive earth, are shown to carry with themselves a wide variety of quasi-stable states such that they could remain in excited states for a considerable period of time even if the temperature of the thermal environment is lowered The stored energy in these excited states, once released, can be utilized as a factor for driving various molecular association and dissociation (author) Abstract only