The Link Between Inevitability And Rate Isn't Very Well Established.
And that's because there isn't a good mathematical correlation between them!
Previously, we looked at the concept of the Gibbs free energy (ΔG) in thermodynamic situations. The Gibbs energy of a chemical reaction describes the spontaneity of a reaction occurring at a specific temperature.
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For instance, the formation of carbon dioxide from carbon and oxygen has a ΔG value of -394 kJ/mol of carbon dioxide.
The negative value of ΔG means that carbon will inevitably react with oxygen to form carbon dioxide.
But those of us who have done backyard barbecue sessions will realise that a bag of charcoal that we purchase from the supermarket will not spontaneously combust. It just remains as little bricks of carbon, and we do need other aids such as fire starters to get the charcoal burning.
However, when the flame is lit and the charcoal starts burning, it will be forming carbon dioxide at the end of the day - if there is sufficient oxygen supply to ensure a complete combustion.
If charcoal were to spontaneously combust at room temperature, it wouldn’t be a wise idea to place bags of them in supermarkets for sale, that is for sure.
Hence we do need to look at the idea of the reaction rate, also known as the reaction kinetics.
The kinetics of a reaction tells us how quickly a reaction proceeds. Some reactions occur at a rapid rate - for example, if we were to drop a piece of potassium metal into water, a rapid, spontaneous and violent reaction is observed to occur as the potassium metal turns into potassium hydroxide. (Potassium metal actually has to be stored in oil as a result of its propensity to react with water.)
What we do have to know is that the thermodynamics of a reaction will tell us how inevitable a reaction is, while the kinetics will tell us how quickly it proceeds.
Much like a terribly mismanaged organisation.
Those working on the inside will know that the organisation is bound to collapse one day (thermodynamics), but they don’t know when that day will arrive (kinetics).
In the same way, people with atherosclerosis will know that they are eventually going to get a heart attack (thermodynamics), but they don’t know when that day will arrive (kinetics).
Interestingly, the body does function like a biochemical reactor. What we’re doing throughout our lives is to feed in different inputs, ranging from sensory, mental, physical and chemical… and then the various cells in our body take those inputs and produce outputs from there, some desirable and some undesirable.
By providing different types of stimuli, we may accelerate or decelerate the rate of different biochemical reactions.
For example, professional athletes know the importance of consuming sufficient protein to maintain muscle mass for optimal performance in their sport. They’d need to work out specific muscles for enhancing muscle growth (output), and they’d have to be consuming sufficient protein in their diet (input) to ensure that they have the necessary foundational building blocks for building new muscle cells.
And on the flip side, additional stress (input) in our lives can be pro-inflammatory (output), which results in the production of more pro-inflammatory cytokines.
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These pro-inflammatory cytokines can signal the macrophages in our body to produce more matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) enzymes, which can digest away the collagen cap on the atherosclerotic plaque more quickly (here’s when the reaction rate increases).
Hence we don’t want to give a person with heart disease unnecessary stress.
Because while the inevitability (thermodynamics) of a heart attack looms, the unnecessary stress will only accelerate the issue (kinetics) and force the patient into a worsened state of health.
But thermodynamics is not equal to kinetics, let’s remember that.
They are related to each other via some mathematical equations that I am loathe to discuss here.
However, the magnitude of the Gibbs free energy in a chemical reaction does not, in any way, reflect the speed that the reaction will proceed at. The reaction kinetics are a completely different ballgame from the reaction thermodynamics.
But at the end of the day, what is inevitable thermodynamically will most likely happen. We just don’t know how fast we will take to get there. They are ticking time bombs just waiting to go off - but when will they actually go off?
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