lifecycle-kit / bio-laws / thermalRateFactor

Function: thermalRateFactor()

thermalRateFactor(kelvin): number

How much faster metabolism runs at a given temperature, relative to 20 °C.

Source: Gillooly, J.F., Brown, J.H., West, G.B., Savage, V.M. & Charnov, E.L. (2001). "Effects of size and temperature on metabolic rate." Science, 293(5538), 2248-2251.

B ∝ M^(3/4) · e^(-E / kT)

The mass term is vonBertalanffyMass's business and the scaling laws above; this is the Boltzmann-Arrhenius factor alone, normalised so that 20 °C returns exactly 1. A creature on a warm world builds tissue faster from the same meal, and one on a cold world builds it slower — the same chemistry, run at a different rate.

This is a RATE multiplier, not an efficiency: it says how fast the reactions proceed, not how much of the food ends up as body. Doubling the rate does not create matter, and the caller is responsible for still conserving it.

Deliberately unclamped at the top. Real metabolism does not accelerate forever — proteins denature and the curve collapses past an optimum — but that falling limb is a different law with a different citation, and faking it with a Math.min here would be an invented constant sitting in a file whose whole premise is that it contains none. A caller that models a world hot enough for it should apply that law explicitly.

Parameters

kelvin

number

Returns

number