Three Barriers to Longer Life

There are three major barriers to a much longer human lifespan. Could science overcome some, or all of them, by the end of the 21st century?

From a single cell, the human organism develops to its final size and shape in space, and to sexual and physical maturity; also, it cooperates with microbes from the environment while defending itself from others; and different types of cells in the body cooperate, making us alive, aware, allowing us to perceive our own body and the environment and to remember everything we have experienced. An important question is why doesn’t our body, after fully evolving, simply continue to exist eternally? It has already gone through this amazing process of development from the first cell to its final shape, while its cells matured and acquired their functions. Clearly, some biological limitations are set upon us. Why do they limit the existence of our organisms in time and how do they do it?

Research on how to significantly extend the human lifespan might be the most rational goal towards which a person could devote their time. Namely, physicists would understand that human bodies are all just mass. But mass is equivalent to the energy that has temporarily turned into mass, into our atoms. These atoms have been around for billions of years. In our time, for some reason, they have been incredibly precisely organized, to temporarily take on human form. After our death, they will go back to the state of atoms. Then, over time, they may even turn back into energy. Thus, from the point of view of physics, all…