BIOPHYSICS 



PART I. SYSTEMATIC 



SECTION L: ENERGETICS 



CHAPTER I 

 LAWS OF ENERGY 



" The history of man is dominated by and reflects the amount of 



available energy." 



BIOPHYSICS deals with the application of physical and physico- 

 chemical laws to the actions of living things. It is neces- 

 sary at the outset to have a clear understanding of what 

 is meant by a natural law, or principle of nature. A law in 

 science is a different concept from a law in philology or in juris- 

 prudence. Repeated observation of a recurring phenomenon 

 leads to the conclusion that there is a natural and unalterable 

 sequence of events. This is summarised in a law. Newton's 

 Law, for instance, epitomises the conclusions of a large series of 

 observations, viz. that objects free to do so always fall towards 

 the earth. A natural law, then, is not a principle governing the 

 action of nature, but a generalisation drawn from observation of the 

 phenomena, stating, in short, how these phenomena have always 

 been known to act in the circumstances. If the observations 

 are correct, the law is true and, in like circumstances, will always 

 hold. If at any time a reliable observation were made that 

 seemingly went against the law, scientists would not doubt the 

 validity of the law, but would carefully examine the concomitant 

 circumstances to see in what point they differed from those 

 defined in the law. The problem before us is to determine 

 whether laws deduced from the study of non-living matter may 

 be applied to the elucidation of biological phenomena. Physical 



B.B. 1 



