Time-Neutrality of Natural Laws Challenged: Time Is Not an Illusion but Ongoing Energy-Driven Information Loss

It is shown that the time of entropy increase, here called action time, is caused by a dynamically understood energy. It drives time by decreasing its presence per state, that is by abandoning order, information, and creating entropy. This mechanism can be derived from basic principles via the Lagrange-Euler formalism, just considering the properties of really experienced, oriented time and thus abandoning the paradigm of time neutrality. It describes nature driven by a dynamically understood principle of least action, which is identified as manifestation of fundamental irreversibility in nature. This readily explains the second law of thermodynamics and also yields the entropy law for non-linear irreversible thermodynamics: maximum entropy production within the restraints of the system. Dynamic energy-driven time, action time, and time asymmetry is generated via the process of erasing information and liberating its energy irreversibly as heat. It is not an illusion but information-based reality. It is the loss of information to the past and different from clock-time, which is just an artificial scale, using information for tracking real time, action time. Energy-driven fundamental irreversibility of nature can better describe experienced reality and opens the way to understand and finally imitate the self-organizing creativity in nature. It also draws far reaching consequences for understanding quantum physics, gravitation and cosmology as well as biology. From the point of view of irreversibility, nature turns out to be more elegant, simpler and rationally understandable. For the first time, it can be explained in a few words what energy and nature basically represent and why it must have been information, which has started the universe.

Progress in understanding fluids in mesopores

An important feature of porous materials is the adsorption hysteresis: the amount of an atomic or molecular species adsorbed from the gas phase is not only dependent on the gas pressure, but may depend in certain ranges of pressure on the history. Thus, the system may respond in different ways to identical experimental conditions which seems to contradict classical thermody-namics. While the phenomenon is known since about a century, it has not yet found a consistent theoretical description. In the pres-ent talk, we will-based on results of computer simulations-formulate rules that provide a consistent basis for the behavior of confined systems, or even for inhomogeneous systems in general. In other words, we present a new theory (confined thermodynamics) with its own definitions and rules. It will turn out, that hysteretic behavior does not impose a conceptual challenge any more, but follows in a natural way from these rules. The approach which is employed in the simulations is very akin to the density functional method. All quantities defined develop into the standard thermodynamic expressions when the density of amount becomes homogeneous.The second part of the talk is devoted to the potential for practical use. It turns out that the new theory does not only remove conceptual problems, but at the same time opens the route to a number of new states found in porous systems which may lead to im-proved applications. In particular we will focus on the possibility to drive a fluid in a pore into exotic states with negative pressure, provided one has full control over the phenomenon of adsorption hysteresis. Negative pressure states are in principal known since the time of Torricelli and they have been in the literature as experimentally accessible situations. Still, they have not been turned into practical usefulness which is likely to be caused by the notion of their metastability in macroscopic systems. However, fluids con-fined to nanopores have been proven to show reproducible behaviour. The present time appears to be suited for exploring the new ap-plications resting in fluid/pore systems: since about a decade material scientists have started to prepare pores with increasing accura-cy from an increasing variety of substances. On the other hand, the new theory presented in the first part of the talk provides the tool to drive a fluid/pore system reliably into any of the exotic states found within a hysteresis loop. Prospects of a few applications will be discussed.

Space-Time Universe versus Energy Driven Time Arrow Universe: Time-Neutrality Confronted with Fundamental Irreversibility

A dynamic interpretation of quantum phenomena based on an energy driven time arrow requires a combined description of matter and information on matter. This information around matter turned out to be gravitation and the fact that a photon is continuously recycled via this information generates an always constant light velocity. These two phenomena, simple consequences of fundamental irreversibility, have mathematically been imposed on empty space for time-neutral spacetime in General Relativity theory. In an irreversible universe such a four-dimensional spacetime would not anymore be required. Another striking difference is the role of time. Clock-time, used in Relativity Theory and found to be relative, is not associated with a generation of changes, being only a scale for measuring changes, based on selected periodic phenomena. The real time in an irreversible world, action time, is the flow of action, as generated by the principle of least action, or, alternatively, the loss of information on the past. In contrast to clock-time, action time is invariant with respect to relativistic transformation and also facilitates self-organization of matter and information. Gravitation as information on matter with the aim of imposing the principle of least action also provides the link between quantum world and cosmology, which Relativity Theory cannot provide. Relevant aspects of both theoretical approaches, with special emphasis on already experimentally verified spacetime phenomena, are critically analysed. While Relativity Theory, which is relying on time-neutral laws, is applied to support a chaotically exploding Big Bang scenario, the fundamentally irreversible universe subject to an energy driven time arrow is characterized by self-organization of energy, matter and information yielding an intelligent and creative “Self-Image” universe, which is able to periodically regenerate itself. Arguments for a fundamentally irreversible energy driven nature include, apart from explaining experimental support for Relativity Theory differently, the simple, straightforward derivation from a dynamically interpreted principle of least action, the elimination of quantum and cosmological paradoxes and the more sensitive and flexible information-technology based (digital) nature of gravitation as compared with the analogue “bent space” gravitation.

The Subcellular Localization and Blue-Light- Induced Movement of Phototropin 1-GFP in Etiolated Seedlings of Arabidopsis thalianaw

Phototropin 1 （photl） is a photoreceptor for phototropism, chloroplast movement, stomatal opening, leaf expansion, and solar tracking in response to blue light. Following earlier work with PHOTI：：GFP （Sakamoto and Briggs, 2002）, we investigated the pattern of cellular and subcellular localization of photl in 3-4 d old etiolated seedlings of Arabidopsis thalinana. As expressed from native upstream sequences, the PHOTT：GFP fusion protein is expressed strongly in the abaxial tissues of the cotyledons and in the elongating regions of the hypocotyl. It is moderately expressed in the shoot/root transition zone and in cells near the root apex. A fluorescence signal is undetectable in the root epidermis, root cap, and root apical meristem itself. The plasma membranes of mesophyll cells near the cotyledon margin appear labeled uniformly but cross-walls created by recent cell divisions are more strongly labeled. The pattern of labeling of individual cell types varies with cell type and developmental stage. Blue-light treatment causes PHOTI：：GFP, initially relatively evenly distributed at the plasma membrane, to become reorganized into a distinct mosaic with strongly labeled punctate areas and other areas completely devoid of fluorescenco a phenomenon best observed in cortical cells in the hypocotyl elongation region. Concomitant with or following this reorganization, PHOTT：GFP moves into the cytoplasm in all cell types investigated except for guard cells. It disappears from the cytoplasm by an unidentified mechanism after several hours in darkness. Neither its appearance in the cytoplasm nor its eventual disappearance in darkness is prevented by the translation inhibitor cycloheximide, although the latter process is retarded. We hypothesize that blue-light-induced photl relocalization modulates blue-light-activated signal transduction.

Spectro-Microscopy of Living Plant Cells

Spectro-microscopy, a combination of fluorescence microscopy with spatially resolved spectroscopic techni- ques, provides new and exciting tools for functional cell biology in living organisms. This review focuses on recent devel- opments in spectro-microscopic applications for the investigation of living plant cells in their native tissue context. The application of spectro-microscopic methods led to the recent discovery of a fast signal response pathway for the brassi- nosteroide receptor BRI1 in the plasma membrane of living plant cells. Moreover, the competence of different plant cell types to respond to environmental or endogenous stimuli was determined in vivo by correlation analysis of different optical and spectroscopic readouts such as fluorescence lifetime （FLT）. Furthermore, a new spectro-microscopic technique, fluorescence intensity decay shape analysis microscopy （FIDSAM）, has been developed. FIDSAM is capable of imaging low- expressed fluorophore-tagged proteins at high spatial resolution and precludes the misinterpretation of autofluorescence artifacts. In addition, FIDSAM provides a very effective and sensitive tool on the basis of F6rster resonance energy transfer （FRET） for the qualitative and quantitative determination of protein-protein interaction. Finally, we report on the quan- titative analysis of the photosystem I and II （PSI/PSII） ratio in the chloroplasts of living Arabidopsis plants at room tem- perature, using high-resolution, spatially resolved fluorescence spectroscopy. With this technique, it was not only possible to measure PSI/PSII ratios, but also to demonstrate the differential competence of wild-type and carbohydrate-deficient plants to adapt the PSI/PSII ratio to different light conditions. In summary, the information content of standard microscopic images is extended by several dimensions by the use of spectro-microscopic approaches. Therefore, novel cell physiolog- ical and molecular topics can be addressed and valuable insights into molecular and subcellular processes can be obtained in living plants.