A system both at rest and upon which no stress is being exerted.
Such systems do not change nor are likely to change without an input of energy. See by contrast dynamic equilibrium.
Though not the most interesting of things to study, static equilibria are important to biology in the sense that structures assembled ideally are not falling apart. Such an ideal, though, is not often met given a combination of entropy (i.e., the tendency for that which has been assembled to indeed fall apart, resulting in a dynamic equilibrium if such structures are to be sustained) and ongoing growth (i.e., the need to add to the abundance of structures, implying in a sense that a structure, at least as whole, has not attained equilibrium).
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