ABSTRACT
Terrestrial biological time flows from a past through a present toward a future and is irreversible. Having a preferred direction, biological time is definitely not that of general relativity, of relativistic quantum field theory, of quantum mechanics, or of supersymmetric quantum string theory, even though strictly, these theories are not time invariant. If some version of string theory ever emerges as dominant, it may eliminate space and time entirely, at which point it will be either the long sought for “theory of everything,” or an empty, useless physical theory of nothing. In brief, the proposal is that some of the familiar pieces of standard physics can be slightly modified to achieve approximations suitable for a physical biology, out of which biological time emerges. Some genes and their products, acting as controlling influences or chemical constraints, partially determine life span—a fundamental biological, dynamic unit of time for all multicellular organisms that stop growing in adulthood.
