🚀 go-pugleaf

"pparso39@swbell.net" <pparso39@swbell.net> writes:


>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.

At equilibrium, the forward and backwards rates of all processes
are equal.  For an living organism, this would mean that the rate
at which it takes in air, water, and nutrients is equal to the
rate at which it gives off air, water and nutrients.  Also the
rate at which it gives off waste products is equal to the rate at
which it takes in those waste products.  That would be equilibrium,
however, that is not what occurs in any living organism.  

Bryant Fujimoto
fujimoto@u.washington.edu