The laws of thermodynamics – how they relate to energy transfers in biological systems.
First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics, as they apply to biological systems.
What kind of system are you: open or closed?
As it turns out, this is a physics question, not a philosophical one.
You, like all living things, are an open system, meaning that you exchange both matter and energy with your environment.
For instance, you take in chemical energy in the form of food, and do work on your surroundings in the form of moving, talking, walking, and breathing.
All of the exchanges of energy that take place inside of you (such as your many metabolic reactions), and between you and your surroundings, can be described by the same laws of physics as energy exchanges between hot and cold objects, or gas molecules, or anything else you might find in a physics textbook. Here, we’ll look at two physical laws – the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics – and see how they apply to biological systems like you.