Sorry for going AWOL over the last two days. There were practical reasons ("Events" etc, etc) but rather surprisingly for an Olympic-level bore like me, I actually didn't have much to say and so for once I said nothing!
However, one of the reasons for my absence was in order to attend the funeral of an elderly neighbour who died 'naturally' in her sleep. Ever since I have been pondering exactly what they mean by dying 'naturally'? Of course, I understand death caused by a No. 29 bus running over you, or, a throw of the microbiological dice which results first in one cell going malignant and then spreading the malignancy throughout your system until it gives up and you die. But if you suffer no external or internal trauma, why and how do you die?
I seem to remember reading somewhere that 'natural' death was simply a demonstration of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics - well, everything gets blamed on the poor old 2nd Law! The idea was that the body is a perfect example of a closed system which the 2nd Law demands and that from day one we strive to inject energy into it by means of food and drink. Unfortunately, however hard we work at that we cannot outpace entropy which gradually increases until it reaches an equilibrium, at which point there is no more energy in the system and we die. According to the physics swats, the universe will go the same way!
Mind you, I'm not quite sure how that ties in with the latest galactic observations, reported last week, which show the speed at which the universe is expanding is actually increasing! Everything is hurtling away from everything else faster and faster. Where is it getting the energy from, I ask? Perhaps its on the same stuff as some of those so-called athletes waiting to perform at next year's Olympics. Anyway, to drop into this post with a dull thud the tritest of trite opinions, the more we learn the more we learn how little we know. And it's funny how that old American saying, 'what goes around comes around', frequently occurs in science. Thus, I was struck by a description of electrons circling the central nucleus of an atom. It is as though the nucleus was surrounded by a series of invisible shells, each one larger than the next the further out they went. The electrons sit naturally on the inner-most ring but when energy (heat) is directed at them they jump further and further to the outer rings. However the description of these invisible shells operating at the sub-atomic level instantly reminded me of the Ptolemaic system which once ruled the scientific circus for 1,500 years or so and was considered the last, indeed the only, word on how the universe worked - until Copernicus came along and turned it all inside out. Typical Prussian troublemaker - heh!
ADDITIONAL: Another of those odd coincidences. Last night listening to my radio there was a report that a group of genetecists had been given permission to map the entire genetic code of a lady who recently died at the age of 115 years! Apparently she had offered her body for scientific research long before her death. The scientists are attempting to find out if genetics played any part in her immensely long life.
I can tell you now - free, gratis and for nothing - that genetics will have played a part in her having had a long life. Morover, I can tell you that it was not genetics alone: we must thank, for instance, those car drivers who refrained from mowing her down, those gas fitters who eschewed the idea of blowing her up, and her own wisdom in not inhabiting a country plagued by malaria, yellow fever, and the Lord's Resistance Army.
Posted by: dearieme | Sunday, 16 October 2011 at 15:52
That's all true, DM, but we should add also, despite the best efforts of Kaiser Bill and 'Hairy' Hitler!
Posted by: David Duff | Sunday, 16 October 2011 at 16:57