i have been thinking about a little home-brewed theory of aging lately,
stimulated by my chem class. an enclosed system, say for example two
gases, will react until equilibrium. ok simple everyone knows that. my
idea is, what are the similarities between an animal or plant and this kind
of system. when we are born are we the intial concentrations, and then as
time goes on the system moves towrads equilibrium? kind of interesting
when i think about how, as we age, we move towards a state of increased
entropy, i.e. death. we start off very ordered and then things start to
get out of hand and then there is maximum entropy when we die and our dust
gets scattered on the wind. are we kind of like a wound up clock or spring
at birth and then the clock is let go and it winds down?
also, we are not really enclosed systems, we can suck up energy from the
outside. so that's something else that complicates the picture.
my natural next thought was "ok to slow down aging you have to slow down
the movement toward equilibrium" or even "increase the rate of the reverse
process to equal the rate of the forward process so that you dont move at
all towards equilibirum, which is kind of another equilibrium in itself".
hazel
