Biological application of the statistical concepts used in the Second Law.

The idea that living things violate the Second Law has been suggested many times. We point out that any mathematical formalism can be applied to a variety of physical processes; here to all molecules on the one hand (Boltzmann) and to messages of the genetic code on the other. The latter is an application of what is known as Shannon's law of communications theory. One application can be valid without the other, in particular if we suspect Shannon's law, this does not imply a breakdown of the molecular law leading to thermodynamics. To avoid a defect of Shannon's law, a widening of the representative "space" of the genome is proposed; the new space, called here the "polymeric space" is found to have properties that make it particularly suitable as a vehicle of biological description. We find that in this manner an apparent violation of Shannon's law can be accounted for.