From owner-biophysics@net.bio.net Mon Aug 10 23:00:00 1998 Path: biosci!news.stanford.edu!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!howland.erols.net!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!portc01.blue.aol.com!portc02.blue.aol.com!pitt.edu!not-for-mail From: Terry Morris Newsgroups: bionet.biophysics Subject: Products of ions and all that... Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 10:31:25 -0400 Organization: University of Pittsburgh Lines: 71 Message-ID: <35D055BD.A3F9B49B@pitt.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: opossum.dental.pitt.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------DD3729C9D3B089238337E6E0" X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.05 [en] (Win95; I) --------------DD3729C9D3B089238337E6E0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Ok you clever people, You know that equilibrium equation we all were taught in chemistry class: The product of the PRODUCTS divided by the product of the REACTANTS is a constant. This has bugged me for years and I'm finally comming out of the closet about it (Don't you just hate it when formulas are simply given. I've been told that the equilibria equation was determined empirically, end of story. Nah!). How can this result be interpreted in terms of what is going on at the molecular level; why do we multiply the species concentrations together? Beacuse, in mathematical terms, when you multiply pairs of numbers together from say a range of integers between 1 and ten, the greatest value occurs at 5 x 5 = 25. So, what this formula is saying is that the value of the numerator or denominator is at maximum went those species are in equal quantities. What does this model in terms of molecule pairs interacting? I have some vague notions of my own about the the maxium proportion of collisions between species pairs taking place when they are in equal quantity. But I have never seen these questions addressed in any text, and I dont have the math or physics background to begin to work it out myself. If anyone can be bothered to post their thoughts or authorative knowlege on this I may avoid having therapy. Thanks, Terry Morris --------------DD3729C9D3B089238337E6E0 Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Ok you clever people,

You know that equilibrium equation we all were taught in chemistry class: The product of the PRODUCTS divided by the product of the REACTANTS is a constant.  This has bugged me for years  and I'm finally comming out of the closet about it (Don't you just hate it when formulas are simply given. I've been told that the equilibria equation was determined empirically, end of story.  Nah!).  How can this result be interpreted in terms of what is going on at the molecular level; why do we multiply the species concentrations together?  Beacuse, in mathematical terms, when you multiply pairs of numbers together from say a range of integers between 1 and ten, the greatest value occurs at 5 x 5 = 25. So, what this formula is saying is that the value of the numerator or denominator is at maximum went those species are in equal quantities.  What does this model in terms of molecule pairs interacting?

I have some vague notions of my own about the the maxium proportion of collisions between species pairs taking place when they are in equal quantity.  But I have never seen these questions addressed in any text, and I dont have the math or physics background to begin to work it out myself.

If anyone can be bothered to post their thoughts or authorative knowlege on this I may avoid having therapy.

Thanks,  Terry Morris
 
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