State function question as it applies to Biology/Physiology

Join the discussion
Registration is free. Ask a follow-up in this thread, or start your own.
2 replies · 3K views
taimcampos92
Messages
2
Reaction score
0
Hi everyone! Hope you all are doing great. I'm currently starting a new course mixed with Chemistry, Biochemistry, and Physics-related to Nurse anesthesia. While reading about State function a question arrived on my team. We all agreed that a State Function "is a property or characteristic of a system that depends only on its current state and not on how it reached that state"; however, can a person's Blood pressure or body temperature can be considered state functions?
 
Biology news on Phys.org
Welcome to PF. :smile:

Can you give a reference to your source of information on State Functions? Is it referring to biological and physiological systems mainly, or is it a general systems reference?

The issue with BP and body temperature is that they are affected by many things in real time. And it seems like elevated local temperature due to local swelling is different from uniform body temperature. Similarly, low BP due to being in V-tach is different from low BP with a NSR...
 
Reply
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: Laroxe and taimcampos92
berkeman said:
Welcome to PF. :smile:

Can you give a reference to your source of information on State Functions? Is it referring to biological and physiological systems mainly, or is it a general systems reference?

The issue with BP and body temperature is that they are affected by many things in real time. And it seems like elevated local temperature due to local swelling is different from uniform body temperature. Similarly, low BP due to being in V-tach is different from low BP with a NSR...
I see, thanks for the quick reply,

Still becomes somehow confusing to me to actually understand and fully recognize it. I'll do a little more research, thank you