Maximum power principle
"[2] Chen (2006) has located the origin of the statement of maximum power as a formal principle in a tentative proposal by Alfred J. Lotka (1922a, b).
While Lotka's work may have been a first attempt to formalise evolutionary thought in mathematical terms, it followed similar observations made by Leibniz and Volterra and Ludwig Boltzmann, for example, throughout the sometimes controversial history of natural philosophy.
Lotka said (1922b: 151): The principle of natural selection reveals itself as capable of yielding information which the first and second laws of thermodynamics are not competent to furnish.
They tell us that certain things cannot happen, but they do not tell us what does happen.Gilliland noted that these difficulties in analysis in turn required some new theory to adequately explain the interactions and transactions of these different energies (different concentrations of fuels, labour and environmental forces).
It provides information about the rate at which one kind of energy is transformed into another as well as the efficiency of that transformation.In this way the concept of maximum power was being used as a principle to quantitatively describe the selective law of biological evolution.
However Leopold and Langbein have shown that streams in developing erosion profiles, meander systems, and tributary networks disperse their potential energies more slowly than if their channels were more direct.
In this context, organisms that effectively capture and utilize energy resources are more likely to thrive and propagate, driving evolutionary processes.
It suggests that the principles governing biological evolution are intimately connected with those of thermodynamics, particularly the concepts of energy flow and entropy production.
By considering natural selection as a thermodynamic process, Odum implies that organisms evolve traits and behaviors that enhance their energy capture and utilization, consistent with the MPP.
By elevating the MPP to the status of a fundamental thermodynamic law, Odum underscores its universal applicability across various complex systems, including biological ones.
This perspective emphasizes that biological systems, driven by the imperatives of survival and reproduction, tend to evolve in ways that maximize their power output, thereby enhancing their capacity to exploit available energy resources.
By acknowledging the MPP as a governing principle, Odum highlights its explanatory power in understanding ecosystem dynamics, population interactions, and evolutionary trajectories.
... Odum argues ... that the free market mechanisms of the economy effectively do the same thing for human systems and that our economic evolution to date is a product of that selection process.
101–102)Odum et al. viewed the maximum power theorem as a principle of power-efficiency reciprocity selection with wider application than just electronics.
Davis said that, "The maximum power principle is a potential guide to understanding the patterns and processes of ecosystem development and sustainability.
The "maximum power" was discovered several times independently, in physics and engineering, see: Novikov (1957), El-Wakil (1962), and Curzon and Ahlborn (1975).
