In the Beginning was Information

ed this law when contemplating the course of organic life.Although it was discovered by a medical officer, nobody consideredthe possibility of restricting the validity of this theorem tomedical science only. There is no area of physics where this theoremhas not been decisive in the clarification of relationships. It isfundamental in all technical and biological processes.The second law of thermodynamics was discovered by RudolfClausius in 1850 during the course of technological research. Heformulated it for thermodynamic processes, but this theorem is alsovalid far beyond all areas of technology. Even the multiplicity ofinteractions and conversions in biological systems proceed accordingto the requirements of this law of nature.Later in this book we will formulate several theorems on information,but the reader should not labour under the impression thattheir validity is restricted to the areas of informatics or technology.On the contrary, they have the same impact as laws of nature, andare therefore universally applicable in all cases where informationis involved.N5: The laws of nature are immutable. All known observationsindicate that the laws of nature have never changed. It is generallyassumed that the known laws are constant over time, but this isalso merely an observation that cannot be proved.Comment: Of course He Who has invented and established thelaws of nature, is also able to circumvent them. He is Lord of thelaws of nature, and in both the Old and the New Testaments wefind numerous examples of such events (see Theorem N10b).N6: The laws of nature are simple: It should be noted that thelaws of nature can mostly be formulated in very simple terms.Their effects are however often complex, as may be seen in the followingexample: The law of gravity has been described as the mostimportant generalisation which human intellect has been fortunateenough to discover. It states that two bodies exert a force on eachother which is inversely proportional to the square of their distanceand directly proportional to the product of their masses. It can beformulated mathematically as follows:30