🚀 go-pugleaf

On Fri, 02 May 1997 20:07:17 -0700, pparso39@swbell.net <pparso39@swbell.net> wrote:
>john baez wrote:
>> 
>> In article <3369749D.3D21@midusa.net>, T. Haug <tjhaug@midusa.net> wrote:
>> >John:
>> >How do you define equilibrium?
>> 
>> In physics (and I'm posting from sci.physics), "equilibrium" is
>> a condition in which a physical system remains in the same state
>> as time passes.    According to this definition a sleeping dog is
>> not in equilibrium, because while it might look static to the casual
>> observer, it is actually breathing, metabolizing, pumping out heat
>> into the environment, and so on, and eventually it will wake up
>> and walk off.  By this definition, living systems are never in
>> equilibrium; you only reach equilibrium when you die and completely
>> decompose.
>
> No.  Equillibrium is a dynamic state.  For example, we take in air,
>water, and nutrients, which become components of our bodies, which 
>give off waste products.  That is equillibrium.  The body stays the
>same, more or less, but the actual materials move through the system.

Erm, this sounds more like 'steady-state'.  I am *NOT* at equilibrium
with my environment.  I'm losing heat constantly.  Life is seriously
non-equilibrium, sort of a concentration of order maintained
by using food and oxygen.  Equilibrium == dead.

--D.
(IANAP, IAAChemEng)

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