1st International Conference on Advancements of Medicine and Health Care through Technology, MediTech2007,
27-29th September, 2007, Cluj-Napoca, ROMANIA
Timing Life Processes
Dana Baran
Abstract — Natural clocks such as planet movements and biological timekeeping gears inspired artificial timers including water
clocks, sandglasses, mechanical, electric and finally electronic systems. Contemporary medicine and biology reconsiders temporal
morphogenetic and functional patterns interpreting life processes as highly sophisticated clockworks, liable to mathematical
modelling and quantification. Chronobiology and chronomedicine opened a vast theoretical and applicative field of interest.
Keywords: chronobiology, temporal monitoring devices, biological clock, mathematical modelling.
exogenous synchronizers periodically adjust to the cosmic
time. [2] At the very beginning, breathing and heart rate,
pulse frequency, menstrual cycles and vital forces were
perceived as led by rhythmic vibrations of the stars, the sun
and the moon. Nature exhibited both clocks and calendars!
Now living beings are usually forced to disrupt their innate
biorhythms and adapt to man-made temporal cues imposed
by shift work, jet travel, abundance of vegetables and
animal products, irrespective of time of day or season, in
vitro fertilization, cloning and genetic manipulation which
equally play with biological time and social destinies.
1. INTRODUCTION
Throughout the centuries the perspective on biological
phenomena temporal dimension, i.e. on their dynamic
structure and function, followed several synchronic and
diachronic patterns, possibly defined as astromy
thological, cosmobiological, mechanistic, physicochemical, statistico-mathematical, physiological, psy
chological or philosophical insights. [1] After 1950,
scientists started to elaborate a coherently integrated
multidisciplinary and even transdisciplinary approach to
biological rhythms. Largely known as chronobiology, it
lately generated a medical subdivision: chronomedicine.
[2, 3] Cyclic behavior estimation of living things tightly
relies now on modern theories, technical progress and
accurate data processing: so chronomedicine is no
exception from evidence-based disciplines!
3. ASTROMYTHOLOGY
Primeval medicine interpreted life course in terms of
astrology and astronomy, intermingled with mythological
symbols. The sun, the moon and other planets were gods
and goddesses, turning around in interdependent rings,
causing and predicting differentiated bioreactivity,
robustness and illness, birth and death, flourishing and
degeneration. Rhythms began to correlate with numbers
and ratios, as in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, but
in pre-Columbian Mexico, too. [5, 6] By their lives,
divinities regularly controlled recurrent cosmic processes.
2. ENVIRONMENTAL CLOCKWORKS
2.1. The Cosmic Clock Paradigm
The whole universe resembles a clock-like device, imagined –
as Voltaire put it in the XVIII-th century - by a genial
clockmaker god. The star clocks, the sundial, the moon, the
planets, the plants and animals observe interfering quasiconstant periods and mark their completion by specific events.
Such phenomena undoubtedly led to the invention of imitative
time-machines with wheels, teeth and striking trains, evolving
from the shadow pole stuck in the ground, to the atomic clock
telling the hour with one second error in 3000 years. Maybe
surprisingly, today, chronobiologists still debate on
chronoastrobiology, a chronobiological branch dealing with
chronomics, i.e. time structures, in its relation to cosmos and
biosphere. [4] Meteoropathology is included, along with the
recurrent health impact of geo- or/and helio- magnetic field
disturbances, in a more encompassing and traditional view.
4. COSMOBIOLOGY
Biological reality was plotted against a cosmic
background. Its evolution or timed becoming, referred to as
vital energy dynamics, manifested in keeping with both
day-night cycles and seasonal rhythms. Ancient China
considered that interchangeable yin-yang energetic balance
periodically oscillated according to macrocosmicmicrocosmic interpenetration rules. [5, 6] Consequently,
human pulse frequency based diagnosis and prognosis of
disease expressed a complex philosophy of cosmoenergetic
medicine and so did the twelve meridians crossing the
body and bearing 365 acupunctural points along them.
Even when anthropomorphic deities were lacking, golden
numbers, proportions and ratios played key-roles.
2.2. Living Beings as Adaptive Biological Clocks
Living creatures, – chronogenetically determined
biological clocks, - represent time-keeping self-controlled
or anti-entropic feed-back looped entities, which
5. NUMBERS GOVERN THE WORLD
For Pythagoras and Plato, arithmetic, geometry and music
belonged together, the supreme divinity was the number
itself able to “rule over the Universe”. Health derived from
ideal mathematical laws, governing the incessant fight
Dana Baran is with the Faculty of Medical Bioengineering,
”Gr. T. Popa” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Iaşi,
Romania, phone: +40-232-213-573; fax: +40-232-213-573; e-mail:
[email protected]
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Giovanni da Dondi (1318-1389), professor of astronomy,
logic and medicine at Padua and of medicine at Florence
Universities, technically featured an astronomical clock
containing an escapement composed of a band-saw crown
wheel and a verge. [8] By and by, scientists detached
from the occult magical background of the Renaissance,
humanists turned to encyclopedists, and mechanistic
philosophers substituted both wizards and alchemists.[9]
opposing good and evil. [5, 6] According to Philolaos of
Crotona (V-th century BC), health resulted from the
cosmic harmony he called “eurhythmics”. Hippocrates
himself, in the same golden age of the V-th century BC,
believed in the significance of critical days for anticipating
the disease course and applying more efficient timed
therapies. He also recognised chronopathological aspects:
diurnal or nocturnal incidence of acute episodes, seasonal
occurrence of certain diseases. Galen (II-nd century AD)
instead had often recourse to astrological medicine. [5, 6]
Geto-Dacians equally set up a solar calendar as illustrated
by their circular temples, indicating propitious and
unpropitious moments. [1, 6] No wonder Zalmoxis was
considered Pythagoras` apprentice and Dacian priests the
beneficiaries of ancient Egyptian wisdom. [6]
7.2. The Turning Point
The magical mechanistic genius of the Renaissance
anticipated robotics, prepared bionics and seeded the germs
of prosthetics, performing public miracles and
thaumaturgical exploits. [1]This marked the turning point
of iatrophysics and iatromechanics, whereas iatrochemistry
redimensionated alchemy, phytotherapy, mineralogy and
animal organ extracts for more efficient therapeutic blends,
often administered according to “chrono-optimized”
treatment schedules. Nevertheless, as yet, physicians did
not abandon their zodiac books since astrological medicine
maintained its high profile. Paracelsus (1493-1541), the
symbol of iatrochemistry, was such an emblematic
personality. Besides, he kept on being a successful
alchemist. [5, 6, 9] Throughout the XVI-th century,
mechanical clocks became quite common and in the XVIIth century the pendulum was invented. Subsequently, a
more adequate quantification of time-related bioreactivity
and interrelationships with the surrounding Universe was
enabled. Heart rate and wrist pulse constituted reference
oscillators Galilei (1564-1642) used to consult in Pisa
cathedral for evaluating the candelabrum-pendulum
periodic oscillations. Santorio (1561-1636), professor of
physiology at Padua, measured the radial pulse with his
famous “pulsilogium”, -a pendulum-based instrument-,
that preceded the sphygmometer. [5, 6] The pulsilogium
could adapt to heart rate movements by the adjustment of
its strings. The same was true with Lodovico Zacconi
(1533-1627), an Augustinian friar and musician in Venice
and Munich, who controlled the tempo of his concerts by
the cadence of his gate (“andante” in Italian language
means “walking’) he believed to be induced by the heart
rate: “the heart, he ascertains, reveals what is rapid and
what is slow by its own movement”. [10, 11] Deafness
must have made Beethoven feel the same.[11] So, initially,
it was the heart to indicate “the clock mean time (CMT)”!
6. MEDIEVAL TIMING PATTERNS
6.1. Christian Salvation Time
In medieval Europe, learning mainly emanated from
religious institutions which were particularly concerned
with strict timekeeping. Saint Augustin, Dionysius
Exiguus, - a Danubian Scythian by birth-, venerable Beda
or Alcuin were among the early most famous
contributors. [7] Not only were new calendars conceived,
but canonical hours, prayers, lauds and vespers ordered
monastic life that directly conveyed sacred rhythms to
profane destinies, - “in season and out of season”,
reflecting and emphasizing God`s messages. The church
clock struck the cosmic hour on Earth. Real and false
clocks were present, for instance in Malta, in every place,
aimed at getting rid of devil`s sinister impact upon
humans. Christ and the Holy Virgin metaphorically
personified the sun and the moon, respectively.
6.2. Islamic Middle-Ages
Arabs and Persians valorised and further amplified
Greek, Roman and Byzantine knowledge, making time
pieces and astrolabes on solid astronomical ground. The
astrolabe dial consisted of a movable sky map rotated to
show where stars were at every time of day and year. [7]
The time of prayers was capital and religiously observed.
God could influence the chronology of facts and
determine health and welfare to prevail over suffering
and pain. Historians state that, from China and India,
mechanical ideas reached the Islamic world and then
spread to Europe in the XIII-th and XIV-th centuries.
7.3. Enlightened Clockworks
Enlightenment forged new interdisciplinary research
domains from a rational, yet mechanistic perspective,
leaning over the machine-man concept. [12] Iatrophysics,
iatromechanics and iatrochemistry intensely applied physical
and mechanical principles to vital processes modeling and
measurement, conceiving humans as animated machines,
whereas, paradoxically, iatromathematics continued to
correspond to medical astrology. [5, 6] Now, it was the
clock, a more and more precise and often portable device, to
count the heart beats by its regular oscillations, telling its
own CMT: “the cardiac mean time”. Christiaan Huygens
(1629-1695) achieved a pendulum clock in 1657 and in
1670 built a spiral spring balancer for more accurate
7. CHRONOS EX MACHINA
7.1. The Renaissance Mechanistic Magic
It was only by the middle of the XIII-th century that
preliminary mechanical clockworks appeared. The
mercury clock already included the essential components
of a mechanical clock. In 1271, Robert the Englishman
described in his astronomy book such an instrument
endowed with a flywheel - “a disc of uniform weight in
every part”. [8] Dante mentions in his “Divina
Commedia-Il Paradiso”-, written between years 13171320, a clock, probably symbolizing temporal order in
the Heavens. It is interesting to note that, in 1364,
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measurement of oscillatory periods. The Dutch physicist
improved isochronal pendula he described in "Horologium
Oscillatorium" in 1673. [7, 8] With Huygens, a scientific
revolution took place and time estimation left the archaic
epoch once and for ever. In the XVIII-th century, highly
precise clocks had only a two second error a month. [8].
Doctor John Floyer (1699-1734) stands for the first
physician to have examined the pulse a watch in his hand
(1707-1710): this was the pulse watch endowed with a
minute hand. Only later the second hand was added to
mechanical clocks. In 1752, again, pulse frequency in the
afternoon represented an ideal metronome for flute players,
wrote in his Essay on music and performance Joachim
Quantz (1697-1773), a renowned flutist himself, composer,
flute maker and teacher at the Prussian court. [10, 11]
Musical harmony expressed and restored health. In 1761,
John Harrison suggested a chronometer watch working by
the winding and unwinding of a spring. If Santorio is held to
have put the first numerical scale for clinical use on Galilei's
thermoscope, Fahrenheit (1686-1736), Celsius (1701-1744)
and Réaumur (1682-1757) and Sir Thomas Clifford Allbutt
(1836-1925) set up newer, more precise and smaller
thermometers. Basch and Zadek (1881) and Riva-Rocci
(1896) achieved pletismographs. [10] From the XVIII-th and
XIX-th centuries on time related variations of biological
functions and structures in health and disease could be
assessed. Circadian rhythms were documented by Elsner
(1778), Zimmerman (1793), Reil (1796), Falconer (1797),
Hufeland (1797), Autenrieth (1891), Wilhelm (1806),
Barthez (1806), Knox (1815), Testa (1815), Zadek (1881),
Howell (1898), Jellender S(1900), Weiss (1900), Hensen
(1900). [10, 13] At Paris University, J.J. Virey (1775-1846),
a French pharmacist, naturalist and physician, wrote the first
known doctoral thesis focused on biological rhythms.
Furthermore, he introduced the decimal system to laboratory
and anthropometry. Virey envisioned that innate biological
rhythms of living clocks were entrained by periodic
environmental changes, such as the day-night repetitive
alternation. He reported that the effects of drugs varied
according to their administration time. He collected and
published quantified time series, demonstrating human
circadian and annual mortality rhythms. Statistical analysis
of Virey's data using modern time series methods confirmed
his deduction that human mortality exhibits rhythmicity.[14]
Due to technical progress, sleep-wake and rest-activity
cycles, respiratory and heart frequency, arterial blood
pressure oscillations, body temperature and weight variation
along with other biochemical, biophysical, morphological
and functional variables could be more accurately evaluated,
quantitatively and qualitatively assessed in a time-dependent
manner. [2] Consequently, clinically and experimentally
documented biorhythms were ascertained. Pulsilogia,
sphygmometers, manometers, thermometers, pletismographs
completed patients' physical examination. [1, 5, 6, 10, 13]
Dame (1503-1566), a physician astrologer, Girolamo
Cardano (1501-1576), a mathematician and a physician who
also illustrated medical astrology, Nicholas Copernicus
(1473-1543) a notorious physician astronomer, Athanasius
Kircher (1601-1680), another “polymath” monk, familiar
with mathematics, physics, magnetism, astronomy and
medicine, who equally fancied a pulse watch, whereas Pierre
Charles Louis (1781-1872) engaged himself both as a
physician and a pioneer biostatistician. [5, 6, 14]
8. THE PINEAL EYE
Following the theories of Plato, Aristotle and Galen,
Descartes (1596-1650) elaborated his own conception
about the pineal gland, considered the seat of soul,
imagination, reflected spirits and common sense, from a
metaphysiological perspective on sensations, perceptions
and nervous reflexes. [15] This «third eye», also holding
a paramount role in Indian philosophy, is officially
accepted today as a key endogenous synchronizer of
biorhythms by its regular nocturnal melatonin release. [2]
9. HOMEOSTASIS AND BIORHYTHMS
With Claude Bernard`s (1813-1878) definition of the
internal milieu constancy (1865), that later on Cannon
(1871-1945) called homeostasis (1929), almost uniform
adaptive variations of biological morpho-functional
characteristics were envisaged. [16] After about one hundred
years, chronobiologists would, however, amend this
statement in that both basic and adaptive bio-oscillations fit
to a biorhythmic pattern, reaching time-related maximal
(acrophases) and minimal (bathyphases) amplitudes. A
biorhythmic homeostasis had to be admitted in the XX-th
century, complementary to the “oscillatory life” formulated
by Claude Bernard with reference to rigorous, repetitive,
harmonic, ordered constant vital phenomena. [2, 17, 18]
10. TECHNOLOGY BASED CHRONOMEDICINE
In the XX-th century, quantum physics and informatics
approaches to biology stemmed out. Theoretical advances
paralleled technical progress. To biopotential recordings and
chronograms, new methods were added. X-rays, radio
isotopes, positron emission tomography, ultrasounds, radio
immunology, autohistoradiography, immunohistochemistry,
electron microscopy, genetic engineering, mathematical
modeling and computer assistance became part of everyday
biomedical investigational protocol able to define living
beings different “chronomes”, i.e time structure. [2, 3, 4]
Sophisticated on-line and off-line (tele)monitoring devices
appeared meant to better seize the temporal peculiarities of
biological variables course. (Figure 1)
7.4. Doctors: Physicians and Physicists
A remarkable fact emerged from this historical retrospective.
Physicians were most of times their own engineers or
physicists. The already mentioned da Dondi was among
them, along with Jean Fernel (1497-1558), mathematician,
astronomer and eventually a physician, Michel de Nostre-
Figure 1. Actiwatch actigraph: two day activity record
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Subsequently, chronomics emerged, complementing
other “omics”: proteomics, genomics, transcriptomics,
physiomics, metabolomics. Owing to efficient up-to-date
cell biology concepts and bioengineering methods,
chronogenetics proved the existence of cellular clock
genes, pacer and/or calendar cells, identified molecular
ontogenetic programs, described immediate early genes
and late genes with specific roles in timing cell signaling
cascades, in achieving a properly timed noise to signal
ratio, from “womb to tomb”. [2, 19, 20] Modern
biomathematical models developed reflecting normal and
pathological conditions, biodiversity as a whole, and the
subtle properties of non-linear, dissipative, fuzzy living
systems. [21] Statistics adapted to the temporal logic of
life. Boltzmann machines learning algorithm testifies it.
12. CELL CLOCK MODELS
12.1. The Cellular Oscillator: An Attractor
Biologically, many cellular clock models – comparable to
automata” - have been suggested, but they mainly are
transcriptional ones and correspond to temporal frames of
reference. [2] Mathematically, cellular clocks are frequently
modelled as either simple or strange attractors. (Figure 2)
11. THE GAME OF LIFE
Facts that dominated the dawn of the modern era included
Einstein`s (1879-2001) theories of relativity (1905,
1916). [21, 22] Spacetime scientifically proved its
«metamorphic» character and clocks just failed to
measure it since not designed to do so. Clocks principle
had already been integrated to thinking machines in the
Renaissance period, like Wilhelm Schickard's (15921635) calculating clock (1623) which included a set of
Napier's bones, and the mechanical calculator – the
Pascaline-, devised in 1642 by Blaise Pascal (16231662). [23, 24] In the XVII-th century, Gottfried Wilhelm
Leibnitz (1646-1716) constructed another calculator, - the
stepped reckoner-, employing the stepped gear principle
and in the XIX-th century, Charles Xavier Thomas de
Colmar (1785-1870) made a more successful calculator,
the Arithmometer (1820), working on the same stepped
gear principle. Even most of today`s computers, based on
von Neumann architecture, possess a clock component,
establishing the rate at which data are transferred in the
working cycle. [24] Computers enormously enlarged
cooperation between mathematics, informatics, and
biology as a whole. Norbert Wiener (1894-1964), but to
some extent also Stefan Odobleja (1902-1978)
contributed to the appearance of neurocybernetics, the
science of control and communication in the nervous
system. [25] Much indebted to Claude Shannon (19162001), information theory played a fundamental part in
this respect. Cybernetics enabled robotics, artificial
intelligence and automation progress, in parallel to
artificial neural networks, well-known non-linear
statistical data modeling tools. This field originated at the
crossroads of mathematics, statistics, computer science,
physics, neurobiology and electrical engineering. Digital
electronics soon emerged. With pencil and graph paper
alone, Von Neumann had also created the first selfreplicating cellular automata taking advantage of their
exponential growth, and in his book “Theory of Self
Reproducing Automata” he had fleshed out the concept
of a universal constructor. [24] Devised in 1970 by the
British mathematician John Conway (1937- ), the game
of life theory used cellular automata to create generations
in keeping with symmetry-dissymmetry, order-disorder,
harmony-chaos, transition or fluctuation states. [26]
Figure 2. Evolution of a simple attractor (lef) to a chaotic
attractor (right) (after Heudin, 1998) [28]
A controlled chaotic attractor could provide multifrequency
outputs that determine rhythmic behaviour on different time
scales (e.g. ultradian and circadian) with the facility for rapid
state changes from one periodicity to another. [27, 28, 29]
Periodic attractors’ transition to chaos may equally occur.
[18, 27, 28, 29] In chronobiology, too, chaos theory and
fractal geometry coexist and complement each other in
rendering the complexity of non-linear dissipative yet
cycling living systems. Information entropy partly explains
the thermodynamic hierarchical behaviour of the cell clock
ultrastructural “wheels”, and Boltzmann`s mechanical
statistics could probably help predict their “choices”, too.
12.2. A Neurokinetic Clock: The Interval Clock
Apart the master mammalian clock illustrated by the
hypothalamic suprachiasmatic nucleus, tightly connected
to the retina and the pineal gland, an interval and a
miliseconds timer were identified. The mood controlled
interval timing of the brain suggested by Buhusi and Meck
(2005) derived from artificial intelligence and neural
network paradigms. It was supposed to explain high
frequency neuronal firing rates (second to minute range) of
ultradian (τ<20 hours) biorhythms. [30] The interval
timekeeper shares many properties with the pacemaker–
accumulator timing models and would act by coincidence
detection at corticostriatal and striatal levels. Interval
timing is central to broader coordination of tasks such as
walking, manipulating objects, carrying on a conversation
and tracking objects in the environment, to understanding
temporal order of events. Millisecond timing acts at
cerebellar level and probably originates in the intrinsic
properties of the neurons. It ensures motor control, speech
generation and recognition, playing music and dancing.
Both emotional states and memories impinge upon brain`s
internal clock, resulting in a highly differentiated
subjective perception of both real and virtual time.
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13. RHYTHMOMETRIC STATISTICS
14. PSYCHOLOGICAL, HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL
RHYTHMS
Biorhythm quantification and mathematical expression
relied on the advancement of statistics itself. John Graunt
(1620-1674), Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695) and
Edmond Halley (1656-1742) established statistical analysis
principles in the XVII-th century and limitedly applied
them to medicine. [5, 6] Even though Cl. Bernard claimed
that the “average man” of statistics rather hides than
reveals the truth, doctor Pierre Charles Alexandre Louis
(1787-1872), his contemporary, implemented statistical
biomathematics, - i.e. “the numerical method”– and
probability calculation, to the estimation of disease
incidence and/or prevalence, prognosis and therapeutic
outcome. [5, 6, 13, 16] Experimental, clinical or laboratory
findings could from now on not only be monitored and
recorded, but statistically interpreted, too. Biostatistics and
biomathematics
were
born.
Inseparable
from
chronobiology, rhythmometric statistics or biorhythmo
metry stemmed out and adapted to time-related data
processing. [2] Originally limitedly applied to
psychosomatic events, as did mathematical chaos and
fractal dynamics, rhythmometric analysis soon extended to
examining psychological, social, historical and
astrobiological rhythmic phenomena. [29, 31, 32]
Chronograms together with polar plots and attractors were
drawn. For the time being, equations of the estimative
curve, MESOR, cosinor, and ANOVA methods represent
routine tools in chronobiology. [2, 33, 34] (Figure 3)
14.1. Cognitive psychology and bioinstrumentation
With Franciscus Cornelis Donder (1818-1889), mental
chronometry became a tool in neuroscience, inspired
neuroinstrumentation, preceded neurocybernetics. Today,
brain activation temporal characteristics are investigated
by functional imaging techniques: biopotential recording,
positron electron tomography, magnetic resonance. [35,
36] The challenging subjective chronoperception and
individual temporal manifestation still raise psychological
uncertainties and philosophical questions which in turn
incessantly stir up scientific imagination and creativity.
14.2. Time in modern Romanian Philosophy
In modern Romanian philosophy, Vasile Conta (18451859) had the intuition of general oscillating processes, as
he shaped his “universal undulation” theory. If for Conta
life resembled a non-ending winding evolutionary spiral,
for Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) rhythmic behaviour of
living and non-living things was transient but ensured
their birth, splendour and decay. [37] Vasile Parvan
(1882-1927) distinguished a “spiritual rhythm” intimately
synchronized to cosmic cyclic vibrations, “historical
rhythms” originated from. [38] Reiterating Bousquet`s
assertion (1923), Fernand Braudel (1979) also stated that
social life infinitely fluctuates by periodical movements.
[39] Following in Matila Ghyka's (1881-1965) footsteps,
Pius Servien (Pius Serban) Coculescu (1902-1959)
focused on the Pythagorean logic and expression of
rhythms, thought of as a fundamental psycho-esthetical
element. [40, 41] For Constantin Radulescu –Motru
(1868-1957), rhythms possibly derived from the
“energetic personalism” circularity, whereas Lucian
Blaga (1895-1961), almost «miraculated» by the
dogmatic Aeon, recognized a historical rhythm. [42, 43]
Duration and eternity interchangeably play with temporal
manifestations the poet philosopher classified into
ascending (“artesian”), descending (“cascade “) and
horizontal (“river”) time. Constantin Noica (1909-1987)
individualized multiple cyclic pulsations of the being:
cosmic, spiritual, organic. [44] For the hermetic poet Ion
Barbu, the skilled mathematician Dan Barbilian (18951961), on the Number generating eurhythmics -“the
music of the flying form”- the entire Universe would rely.
In France, Marcel Proust (1871-1922) and particularly
Henri Bergson (1859-1941) insisted on the relativity of
time perception and evaluation from one moment to
another, from one person to another. [45] “The perception
of change” between “duration and simultaneity’ would
mark everybody`s “creative evolution”. Wondering “in
search of lost time”, regular succession of time was
abolished, whereas “remembrance of things past” forged
future ones and engraved the present. Neither internal
virtual, nor external real time was supposed to be
physically explained and mathematically measured. After
opposing Einstein's ideas in 1911, Bergson accepted the
concept of non-linear time. Temporal metamorphoses of
human soul, body and mind usually dominate the
Figure 3. Circadian variation of systolic blood pressure in
clinically healthy pregnant women. Graphs show hourly
means and standard errors. Nonsinusoidal shaped curves
correspond to the best-fit waveform model determined by
population multiple-component analysis. Arrows point to
the peak time (orthophase) of the circadian rhythm of blood
pressure determined by the waveform approximation.
(Hermida et al, 2004)[34]
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unquantifiable intuitive artistic creativity. Time, indeed,
plays the friend and the foe of mankind, as Franz Halberg
ascertained. [33] Turning the zodiac wheel, the old of
days Chronos, master of ages, keeps on giving birth to
and devouring his own children, regenerating and
destroying, restraining and amplifying Nature's will and
gifts.
15. CONCLUSIONS
Throughout the millennia, biorhythms were defined and
observed in order to preserve and restore health. A more
sophisticated and precise identification and quantification
of chronomes, designating the sum of such periodic life
processes, was allowed by the conjoint progress of real
science-based concepts and techniques applied to
biology. Chronomedicine aims now at implementing
time-scheduled investigations and therapies meant to
improve human condition under both physiological and
pathological circumstances. Living organisms display
time-machine features. This whole-life gradual and/or
instantaneous time travel is irreversible, constantly
revealing the horizon immutable timelines, the anthropic
and the entropic principles, the special spacetime
geometries and the general relativity of things. The
Universe multifaceted temporal dimension keeps on
engendering endless controversies and solutions,
revealing unexpected timing machines and clockwork
behaviours. Mimicking Nature still remains the main
engineering path to follow in medicine and technology.
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