Abstract

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Symmetry: Culture and Science
Volume 31, Number 4, pages 425-438 (2020)
https://doi.org/10.26830/symmetry_2020_4_425

UNIDIRECTIONAL TEMPORAL SYMMETRY UNDERLYING BIOLOGY

Koichiro Matsuno^*

^* Department of BioEngineering, Nagaoka University of Technology, Nagaoka 940-2188 Japan
E-mail: CXQ02365@nifty.com

Abstract: Biological phenomena are full of reaction cycles of physicochemical origin. A most direct description of such a reaction cycle is to refer to the contemporaneous constellation of the participating reactants each of which carries its own path-dependent history behind. Referring to the contemporaneous constellation markedly differs from the state description widely accepted in physics, in which the state variables are taken to be history-independent. Nonetheless, any object to be described is required to remain quiescent in its implication. Such a quiescence requires an invariant. What may remain invariant in the operation of a reaction cycle perceived within the contemporaneous constellation of historical reactants is the class identity of the cycle itself. The class identity is an invariant that can remain symmetric even under the unidirectional temporal translation alone. This unidirectional class identity exhibits a distinct contrast to the individual identity of whatever particle entertained in physics that preserves the reversible or bidirectional temporal symmetry.

Keywords: citric acid cycle, class identity, cohesion, equation of motion, individual identity, path-dependent history, temporal symmetry.
PACS 2020: 82.39.-k, 87.16.Tb

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