I've recently obtained the book "Molecular Driving Forces" by Dill & Bromberg, which introduces statistical thermodynamics and all the associated mathematics. It is on Google print.

I'd like us to do a series of discussions on it, for questions like

1. What is entropy? (ch 6)
   • entropy1.doc: Notes on chapters 1-7a: statistical themodynamics & entropy, presented 26 May 05. (This is a MATLAB notebook so that some of the calculations can be modified and redone interactively if you have MATLAB running; Not many, because I was just playing to see if this would help...)
2. How do entropy and energy relate to quantities we can measure? (ch 7)
3. What is free energy? (ch. 8)
4. What is charge and electrostatic potential? (ch. 20&21)
5. How do molecules interact? (ch. 24)
6. How do they catalyze reactions? (ch. 27)
7. What is cooperative binding? (ch. 28)
8. What is hydrophobicity? (ch. 29&30)
9. What are the energies for polymers? (ch. 31-33)

I'll start today with the first question. If you want to look at chapter 6 on google print, see if this will work: http://print.google.com/print?id=GUYPUeixLlUC&pg=81&lpg=81&prev=http://print.google.com/print%3Fq%3DWhat%2Bis%2Bentropy%26ie%3DUTF-8%26id%3DGUYPUeixLlUC&sig=zMbu0xmicsE40VdT1E8unBFEvQA Or go to the book, look for "what is entropy", and start on page 81.

-- JackSnoeyink - 26 May 2005

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