Question

A ball of snow when rolled over snow increases in mass, volume and size. Is this comparable to growth as seen in living organisms? Why?

Answer 1

Growth in biological terms is characteristic feature of all living organisms. It relates to increase in size by accumulation of protoplasm in the cell thus results in increase in size of the cell. Whereas increase in number of cell by cell division results is the size of individual organism.

Snow is an inanimate (non-living) object, while rolling over snow, it gathers more snow on its surface thus, it increases in size by physical phenomenon but not by biological phenomenon. So, this growth cannot be compared to that seen in living organisms.