The Sun - (I find this post interesting, but it's a little dense, and I don't think it's well written, but I still like it.)

There are so many interesting things about the sun that we don't always think about. For instance, weather is caused by two main factors: the sun and the earth's rotation. Of course when the sun's out, it's hot. But, stuff like winds and currents are actually caused by the planet trying to ditribute the energy that is beamed right at the center throughout the rest of the planet. Which causes winds, currents, and other crap.

And then there is Thermodynamics. Simply put, the universe as a whole is constantly becoming more random. A simple example is burning a piece of paper. Paper is made of complex organic molecules that once burned, turn into simpler more random molecules of C02, water, other byproducts, and some energy in the form of heat released in the process. When the energy rich chemical bonds in the complex organic molecules are converted into the energy deficient chemical bods in CO2 and water, energy is released, or burning occurs. Once the paper is burned, you can never put it back together in its original form. Basically, the universe is being burned away just like a piece of paper, and can never be put back together in its original form.

Here's what I find interesting, the sun is spewing out so much energy, that a planet 8.5 light minutes away (about 150,000,000 km) can put together something as ordered and complex as DNA. Here's the kicker in Thermodynamics. That as complex and ordered that everything we see in life is; proteins, DNA, cells. As complex as that stuff is, that was actually the easiest path for it to go. Everyone can obviously see that when a piece of paper burns, the easiest thing is for the rest of the paper to burn. The sun beaming down onto the earth, forming complex molecules and cells to undergo photosynthesis and everything else is actually the easiest thing to happen.

Side Note:
Just a quick photosynthesis review. Through a series of accidents (with aid of energy of the sun) self replicating chemicals within the cells of plants are responsible for trapping the energy from the sun to combine carbon dioxide and water into sugar wih is the energy source and building block for plants.

Back to the point, thermodynamically speaking, the easiest place for all this energy from the sun to go is to be stored into the chemical structure of sugar. And the easiest thing for the energy stored in that sugar to do is to power molecular proceses that form even more complex chemicals such as DNA. As a matter of fact I have so much excess energy (from food that was created by the sun), that thermodynamically speaking the easiest way for me to despense this energy was in writing this blog post. As I type this, the sugar in my body is being broken down into CO2 and water, the CO2 released from my lungs, and the water through my urine or sweat.

Well that's the sun. It was my hike at Haleakala that got me thinking about it. I mean there are cacti growing out of rocks. There isn't even any soil, and I remembered that the soil is actually a bunch of dead plants. Haleakala didn't have enough of a history to create soil. From air, water, energy from the sun, and minerals from the rocks, these cactuses substantiate out of rocks.