Guy C Brown wrote:
> Personaly I do not think that "work" is a useful concept in
> biochemical thermodynamics: does a reaction really do "work"? I do not
> see how the concept can be used to tell us anything useful or
> important about an ATP driven reaction or any reaction.
Obviously, this last statement might mean different things to different
people, but I disagree with it. ATP is used to perform or drive a
number of tasks that we would recognize as work: Muscle movement and
nervous function are obvious examples. On the other hand, if we're
talking about the use of ATP for biosynthesis, I agree that the concept
of work is applied with greater difficulty there.
Marc R. Roussel
(roussel at henri.chem.uleth.ca)
Department of Chemistry
University of Lethbridge
