4.2 Principles of the physics of life

Newton's laws of motion are three physical laws that together laid the foundation for classical mechanics. The first shows what happens to the objects when no forces act upon it. The second has a form of a simple mathematical equation connecting three properties: force, mass and acceleration, explaining the phenomenon of dynamic motion. The third relates to the interaction between two bodies. Once humanity understood these principles, physicists and engineers were able to create objects such as cars, airplanes and missiles. It turns out, that in the case of life, similar principles can be formulated.

The 1^st principle of the physics of life stems from observations of space. Astronomers have shown that there are two opposing phenomena occurring in the universe. The first phenomenon is the process of the grouping of particles that leads to the formation of gas clouds, planets, stars and black holes. The second is the opposite. These are the various types of cosmic explosions, such as supernova's, which scatters the matter of the exploding object throughout the universe. Both phenomena concerns the same thing - matter. As you can see, depending on the circumstances, matter tends to concentrate or to disperse. Under the most likely model of what we now call the universe, created 13.73 billion years ago by the Big Bang - a huge explosion of highly concentrated matter. Our Earth was formed about 9 billion years later by the grouping of a small part of this scattered matter.

The duality of the law governing matter can be expressed as follows: the particles react in two opposite ways depending on external conditions created by themselves, either they group or they scatter.

Let's call the 1^st law governing matter the duality of nature. This leads to a very important conclusion: material objects, including living objects, can only arise as a result of particles grouping.

For the time being, it is too early to formulate a complete second principle of the physics of life, which explains the dynamic transformations of living objects. This is not about the single transformation of a living objects, but the transformations of the successive generations of living objects. Moreover, this principle can not be described by Newton's simple F=ma equation, or similar. For now, let us assume that it is a process of biological evolution. The basic principle of this process, as we have said, is quite simple, because it is based on the cyclical repetition of three well-defined stages. However, various consequences arise from this. There are so many and they are so complex that we dedicate the next few subsections to them.

The third principle of the physics of life states that all activities of living objects are mainly subjected to absorb resources, and that it is carried out in a pursuant manner. Of course, when the organisms are primitive, absorption of resources is due to the grouping of particles based on a chemical affinity which may be regarded as an extremely simplified form of pursuance. However, because the living objects are submitted to the second law of the physics of life, each of the subsequent generations of living objects transform. Due to this transformation, the goals become more and more complicated and so do the methods of absorption, until we can talk about the full form of pursuance.