physics and aging
- Thread starter Ishika
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DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
On the contrary, the role of physics in the aging process of an organism can be quite plainly seen in this before and after photo:
A modest, interdisciplinary area to look into would be biophysics. For instance, the National Institute on Aging has a cellular biophysics section.
Unsurprisingly, the more aggressive and speculative stances probably stem from boastful physics itself, or its "non-diluted" practitioners...
Physics Makes Aging Inevitable, Not Biology
https://nautil.us/physics-makes-aging-inevitable-not-biology-235928/
"If this interpretation of the data is correct, then aging is a natural process that can be reduced to nanoscale thermal physics—and not a disease."
EXCERPT: . . . Four years ago, I published a book called Life’s Ratchet, which explains how molecular machines create order in our cells. My main concern was how life avoids a descent into chaos. To my great surprise, soon after the book was published, I was contacted by researchers who study biological aging. At first I couldn’t see the connection. I knew nothing about aging except for what I had learned from being forced to observe the process in my own body.
Then it dawned on me that by emphasizing the role of thermal chaos in animating molecular machines, I encouraged aging researchers to think more about it as a driver of aging. Thermal motion may seem beneficial in the short run, animating our molecular machines, but could it be detrimental in the long run? After all, in the absence of external energy input, random thermal motion tends to destroy order.
This tendency is codified in the second law of thermodynamics, which dictates that everything ages and decays: Buildings and roads crumble; ships and rails rust; mountains wash into the sea. Lifeless structures are helpless against the ravages of thermal motion. But life is different: Protein machines constantly heal and renew their cells.
In this sense, life pits biology against physics in mortal combat. So why do living things die? Is aging the ultimate triumph of physics over biology? Or is aging part of biology itself? (MORE - details)
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Ishika
Registered Member
Maybe, but we didn't know much about the subatomic particles yet, their behaviour!! and also atoms does not age!! maybe when proteins degrades the atoms dissociates and maybe there's any physics behind that!!
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
I find this very unpersuasive. His concept of "thermal chaos" sounds unscientific. What can he mean, apart from the slight instability, at least in principle, of any molecule, above absolute zero, due to the thermal kinetic energy possessed by its component parts and the collisions it undergoes with other molecules?
Biological systems include mechanisms to prevent the damage that can occur statistically over time from accumulating. Sure, one can imagine that those systems are not perfect and that over time damage to molecules and structure will build up, but trying to describe this as a process due to physics does not seem to help. It's true at one level, in that the whole of chemistry (and therefore biochemistry) is an expression of physics acting on molecules, but that's just a truism that gets us nowhere in terms of explanations.
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
There is no "excess" heat. He seems to be just talking about the normal reactivity of molecules due to temperature.
Physics governs how DNA behaves, at the molecular level. But a description of biological aging in terms of the underlying physics strikes me as likely to be unhelpfully reductive.
Well, there's the twin paradox effect, but I doubt you're thinking of that sort of thing.
Ishika
Registered Member
yeah, no, im asking about something that's practically applicable on humans!!
Ishika
Registered Member
c
can you elaborate on this a little!! like how?
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
I think what James means is things such as the fact that the DNA molecule is formed by chemical bonding, which is determined by the laws of quantum physics, and is subject to thermodynamics, both classical and statistical, all of which are branches of physics that form the basis of physical chemistry - which in turn forms the basis of biochemistry.
Ishika
Registered Member
got it!! thanks
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
All of biology is just applied chemistry.
All of chemistry is just applied physics.
All of chemistry is just applied physics.