DEFINITIONS
Glossary
The meanings of terms used in the book.
- Apes
- Apes is a branch of the order of primates that includes gorillas, gibbons, chimpanzees, orangutans and humans.
- Entropic decay
- Entropic decay, otherwise referred to as entropy production, refers to the reduction in energyʼs concentratedness as it spreads to become more diffuse.
- Entropy
- Entropy is the amount of diffuseness created as energy spreads.
- exergy.
- Exergy refers to the potential that energy has to do useful work.
- Hominin
- Hominins are members of the primate family Hominidae of which humans are the only surviving member.
- MEPP
- Maximum Entropy Production Principle: the universal tendency for open systems, that exist far from thermodynamic equilibrium, to increase their rate of entropy production up to the maximum rate the environment can sustain. See the section The Goodness Principle in chapter 4.
- MSPP
- Maximum Sustainable Productivity Principle: the universal tendency for open systems, that exist far from thermodynamic equilibrium, to increase their productivity up to the maximum rate the environment can sustain. (An alternative phrasing of the Maximum Entropy Production Principle or MEPP). See the section The Goodness Principle in chapter 4.
- Northern Levant
- Northern Levant is a historical term for the region that today comprises Lebanon, most of Syria, northern Iraq and south each Turkey.
- physical grooming
- The word grooming is used here in its primatological sense of the gentle and persistent pinching, scratching and cleaning of skin and hair that is regularly engaged in by primates.
- Primates
- Primates is an order of mammal that includes monkeys, lemurs and apes, including humans.