The Mechanics of Life

[Storm_Shadow]

Hello, to most of you out there, this is probably a boring subject, but being a person who is into reading to gain knowledge, its fascinating to me. I will start by saying that the one thing that all life needs to survive, is light. Thats right light. There are creatures deep within the ocean that never see the sun and that must bring you to the question of "if everything needs light, then how do they survive?" I'm glad you asked.

It begins with a topic I'm sure you've all heard of before, the food chain. We as you know when we have our technology are at the top. But what you probably don't know unless you paid attention in biology class, is that plants are crucial to this food chain. Even though they're at the bottom of the tottem pole, they still play a major role. Herbivores eat the plants, and then those herbivores get the light energy from the plants that was produced in a process called photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is the process of converting ultraviolet light from the sun's rays into usable energy and storing it in the photoclytin cells in the plant's extremities. Then, when the big (or small) herbivore comes along and eats from the plant, it recieves the energy into its body that the plant worked so hard to store. Then there is the meat-eater, of carnivore. Carnivores are usually built smaller than their prey or usually have some sort of specialization for killing what it is they hunt. And when they do, the light energy that the herbivore recieved from its last meal, is taken in and stored yet again. And every time this happens, this light energy is transferred over and it doesn't really extinguish. The rule of thumb with energy is that it cannot be created or destroyed. It can be transferred, but never destroyed. Well, now back to those creatures of the deep.

In the sea, light is stored at the surface and energizes this area of the water. Photoplankton, algae, and krill flourish here. Then fish eat the photoplankton, and algae. Some whales eat the photoplankton aswell. Sharks eat the fish, or bigger fish eat the fish. And then there are always particles that make their way to the bottom, thats where the ocean dwellers that are so deep they never acually "see" light, get their energy. They eat the left-overs.

[extrapolation]

storm youre a legend

cant wait to get back to EL, i really miss our long chats

[Vanyel]

What's the aim of this post? Just wondering >.<

[Infamous]

does it have to have a point?

there are so many pointless topics around, who cares about 1 more

[Nintenduh]

Not light. Some form of radiation though.

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/...70814093819.htm

 

Anywho. Some of the first forms life on earth had no organic food chain. They ate titanium

Edited September 6, 2007 by Nintenduh

[grinnbearit]

no radiation requires another element to 'make' it you dont radiate nothing u have to radiate something . real question is where does the light come from as up to now all light in universe considered refected light original sources as yet unknown i believe ...just my 2 cents

Edited September 6, 2007 by grinnbearit

[Grum]

real question is where does the light come from as up to now all light in universe considered refected light original sources as yet unknown i believe ...just my 2 cents

Ehm... no, I really wonder where you got that idea. Surely when you turn on the lights in your house, the light you see isn't reflected light from some unknown source. There are many ways in which light can be generated, but they all involve using some form of energy (in your house that'd be electricity) to increase the internal energy of a material, which then emits this excess energy as light particles.

 

And I guess (I'm not a physicist) most of the light in the universe is generated by nuclear fusion in stars, like our Sun. Sure enough light is reflected all the time (see our moon for a nice example), but the origin of the light is generally not a big mystery.

[ttlanhil]

I have a theory where that statement came from... A misunderstanding.

There is no new energy in the universe. There hasn't been since the Big Bang, or whatever other theory of creation you subscribe to.

Energy and matter are interchangeable, you can transform one to the other (Nearly everyone has heard of "E = Mc²", although most have no idea what it means... It's how much energy (E) you get per unit mass (M) (as a sidenote, weight is measured in Newtons, mass in kilograms, yet people give weight in kilograms ). c being the speed of light, 300,000,000 meters per second (so as you can tell here as well as from what you've heard about nuclear fusion and fission... A little mass can be turned into a lot of energy).

 

Of course, once you get to areas that aren't purely for people interested in physics, light and matter generally aren't seen as interchangeable, so the use of electron flow (electrical current) to cause the emission of radiation (light) through the heating of a tungsten (AKA wolfram) element (in a light bulb, otherwise empty, with air removed or replaced by an inert gas to increase the lifespan of the bulb) is the conversion of electricity to light. Going back, that electricity would have been converted from stored chemical (gas, coal), radiation (solar, nuclear), gravatic/currents (hydro, wind)

 

So the core of the statement, that there is no new light, is basically true; it's just the details were mixed up somewhere.

[Grum]

I have a theory where that statement came from... A misunderstanding.

There is no new energy in the universe. There hasn't been since the Big Bang, or whatever other theory of creation you subscribe to.

Unless physical laws and constants change with time. We obviously haven't seen them change (they're not called constants for nothing), but I suppose you can't rule it out entirely. And there are some recent experiments that indicate that the fine-structure constant may indeed be changing (and other experiments contradicting those ...)

Energy and matter are interchangeable, you can transform one to the other (Nearly everyone has heard of "E = Mc²", although most have no idea what it means...

Well, if I'm not mistaken, it's the first term in a Taylor series expansion of the relativistic energy of a moving object (Does one get a prize for using the largest amount of difficult words in one sentence?)

It's how much energy (E) you get per unit mass (M) (as a sidenote, weight is measured in Newtons, mass in kilograms, yet people give weight in kilograms ). c being the speed of light, 300,000,000 meters per second (so as you can tell here as well as from what you've heard about nuclear fusion and fission... A little mass can be turned into a lot of energy).

Yes, look at nuclear bombs, for example

So the core of the statement, that there is no new light, is basically true;

Well, only for a very broad definition of light