Shovel point, Tettagouche State Park, Illgen City, MinnesotaWhat Happens At The Time of Death?
At the moment of human death, the heart stops beating, the lungs stop exchanging air, and the brain stops signaling normal physiologic actions to sustain life; these functional losses may not occur at the exact instant. For legal purposes, cessation of brain function is considered the definitive sign of death. When these life-dependent functions stop, normal cellular function ceases. When cells stop their normal function, cell signaling processes revert from oxidative life-sustaining activity to degradative activity - decomposition. At the time of cell death, it is normal for cells to release proteins that initiate cell destruction.
Under normal room temperature conditions, bodies show signs of lividity within one to four hours; lividity describes when blood stops circulating and begins to pool and migrate under gravity to the lowest portion of the body; hemoglobin becomes deoxygenated and turns a darker red-blue color, referred to as blanching. (Note: absence of blanching is a sign of carbon monoxide-induced death.) At normal room temperature, four to twelve hours after death, rigor mortis sets in; this is a cellular degradation process related to the absence of energy (ATP) that causes muscles to contract. Cooling the body within this time period will slow the process of degradation. Typically, after twelve hours, cellular degradation releases chemicals that support bacterial growth; bacteria cause further breakdown of cells and tissues, releasing gases The common gases released as a result of bacterial action include putrescine and cadaverine, unpleasant smelling chemicals.
Many cultures around the world introduce chemicals (formaldehyde, glutaraldehyde, alcohol) into the body at time of death to slow the rate of biological degradation. This process called embalming usually carried out by a mortician, preserves the body for a period of time after death as a sanitation measure, allowing family time to mourn until such time that the body can be buried or cremated. While burial is considered a sign of respect, it also serves to prevent odor and spread of disease resulting from natural decay. Cremation, an alternative to burial, also serves to prevent odor and spread of disease resulting from natural decay, and serves to preserve the body remains (cremains) if a family wishes to retain the cremains safely above ground.
After Burial
After a body is buried, natural decomposition continues with active engagement of a wide array of organisms including bacteria, yeast, and insects. Over time flesh will dehydrate (mummify), and over longer periods of time, bones decay. Under typical burial conditions, if the body is not contained in a sealed casket, remains will decompose to minerals and small organic molecules within a few years. Cremains will also decompose in the same fashion.In the end, our physical bodies return to the earth. In the biblical sense, this is the is described by the phrase "ashes to ashes".
Bringing this back full circle, recall from the first chapter the "Eulogy from a Physicist":
"You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got.
And at one point you'd hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.
And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of al that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives.
And you'll want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith: indeed, they should not have faith. Let them know that they can measure, that scientists have measured precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time. You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they'll be comforted to know your energy's still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you're just less orderly."
