Entropy of Mutating Viruses |
| J. Ostrowski, M. Ozimek, K.W. Fornalski
Faculty of Physics, Warsaw University of Technology, ul. Koszykowa 75, 00-662 Warszawa, Poland |
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| A virus is a biophysical dissipative system, far from thermodynamic equilibrium, self-organizing, and self-adapting during evolution. This means, in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics developed by Prigogine, that entropy production and entropy flux decrease the internal entropy of the virus. We showed that the Shannon entropy change of three different viruses (SARS-CoV-2, HIV, and influenza) is constant but negative. This confirms Vopson's hypothesis that virus evolution shows a linear negative decrease in information entropy. It also suggests that viruses are evolving systems that are unlikely to reach their stationary (steady) states due to their discrete host-to-host multiplication. |
DOI:10.12693/APhysPolA.146.265 topics: entropy, SARS-CoV-2, HIV, influenza |