Page 140 - The Creation Of The Universe

138 THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE

caping. In other words, most of earth's lakes, seas, and oceans would be-
come solid ice with a layer of water perhaps a few meters deep on top of
it. Even when the air temperature increased, the ice at the bottom would
never melt completely. In the seas of such a world, no life could exist and
in an ecological system with dead seas, life on land would also be impos-
sible. In other words, if water didn't "misbehave" and acted normally, our
planet would be a dead world.
Why doesn't water act normally? Why does it suddenly begin to expand
at 4°C after having contracted the way it should?
That is a question that nobody has ever been able to answer.

Sweat and Cool off
The second and third properties of water mentioned above–high latent
heat and thermal capacity greater than other liquids–are also very impor-
tant for us. These two properties are the keys to an important bodily func-
tion whose value we rarely give a thought to. That function is sweating.
Indeed, what good is sweating?
To explain this, we have to give you a bit of background first. All mam-
mals have bodily temperatures that are fairly close to one another.
Although there is some variation, it is not much and mammalian body tem-
peratures range between 35-40°C. In human beings it is about 37°C under
normal conditions. This is a very critical temperature and absolutely has to
be kept constant. If your body's temperature were to fall just a few degrees,
many of its vital functions would fail. If it rises, as it does when we become
ill, the effects can be devastating. A sustained bodily temperature over 40°C
is likely to bring on death.
In short, our bodily temperature has a very critical equilibrium in which
there is very little room for variation.
However our body has a serious problem here: it is active all the time.
All the physical movements, even those of machines, require the produc-
tion of energy to make them happen. But whenever energy is produced,
heat is always generated as a by-product. You can easily see this for your-