Becker points that life would be impossible if all reactions would go to equilibrium. Is it possible that you could please to site an example (using one of the characteristics of life) which validates this statement? What is the difference between steady state and equilibrium?
Life is in a constant state of flux because it takes a lot of energy to maintain. A lot of energy must be constantly put in in order to grow, to construct complex structures out of simple ones (e.g., E. coli cells out of glucose) and even to maintain a living complex structure (e.g., muscles moving to obtain food, proteins being broken down to amino acids and new proteins resynthesisized). At equilibrium, no energy is being put in, being used, because at equilibrium there is, by definition, no change in free energy taking place (delta G = 0). At equilibrium, complex structures would represent only a tiny percentage of the material present with the great majority of atoms being in simple stable compounds such as CO2 and H2O. So to maintain and expand these complex molecules that are characteristic of life, we need a constant great input of energy. For us, this is in the form of the chemical energy in food. For the planet as a whole it is the from our constant bombardment with photons from the sun.
All living organisms maintain a steady state of atoms flowing in to the system and atoms flowing out while energy is being consumed. As an example of steady state on an organismic basis, we can consider a human being being maintained alive even as its atoms are changing and great amounts of glucose and other energy sourcesare being consumed and CO2 being released. At a microscopic chemical level,we can observe a constant amount of ATP per cell in an exponentially growing culture of E. coli, as great amounts of ATP are being produced by respiration and great amount expended in the synthesis of proteins and nucleic acids, etc. The ATP is constant in its steady state, but its concentration bears no relation to its equilibirum concentration, with ADP + Pi, for example.