Talk:Biochemistry/Thermodynamics

there seemed to be some vandalism of this section. From what I remembered from my thermo class, some of the sections had been deleted that had correct information. I took the liberty to restore these sections.

Removal of comment from text
I removed this comment from the text: 'Not True!!! - If the product is continuously removed, the reaction will continue trying to establish an equilibrium (not necessarily equal - http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/IB_Chemistry_Equilibrium) of reactants and products and the reaction will be driven forward. Another factor is the energy of activation. If the reaction has a transition state that has a very high energy, regardless of the stability of the product, it may require an insurmountable energy of activation to drive the reaction forward. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activation_energy) see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrhenius_equation'

Besides the rather unhelpful format (a book page should not contradict itself in such a fashion. If there is something wrong or something to be added to the page, then feel free to fix it), IMHO the two points are rather void here:
 * If the product is continuously removed... - absolutely correct, but I don't think it fits in this context. Product removal is an additional step, which is described later IIRC. This is not a "data dump" like wikipedia, but a book to learn from. Special cases come after the basics.
 * Activation energy... is described in the next chapter, Biochemistry/Catalysis. Come on, people, this is the first page of the book! It's supposed to be a learning curve and not a concrete wall... --Magnus Manske (talk) 13:02, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Analogy of equilibrium
I don't feel the Monopoly analogy is at all correct. Equilibrium does not mean the same amount of products as reactants. It means equal rates of formation of both products and reactants. The analogy would be more accurate and, more to the point, correct if it read "You each give each other the same amount of money each turn, showing no net increase in the amount of money either of you possess". This is equilibrium - no net increase in the amount of either products or reactants over time. The amounts do not have to be equal, they just do not change. If a portion of either is removed, reaction in the direction towards the amount that has been decreased will be favoured until the initial amounts are reached and equilibrium (equal reaction rate in both directions) is restored.