Room temperature quantum transfer in biological systems

Post by jeffwass » Fri, Aug 28, 2015, 7:41 PM UTC

mathgenius wrote: post #18

dekhn wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That work is highly speculative (I've studied, but not as my primary work, enzyme kinetics and reaction mechanisms). Finding holes in transition state theory isn't hard and I don't see that it's necessary to invoke tunneling protons to come up with better theories. Even the physical experiments cited in the Ball article, are pretty speculative, and aren't accepted by the mainstream. I find it pretty amusing, because…

The ammonia maser uses proton tunnelling.. the guy who invented that also got "laughed out of the room". Well, it's probably a different pressure / temperature than enzyme kinetics, but those physicists, they like to own the quantum and not let anyone else have it. :-)

Post by deepnet » Sat, Aug 29, 2015, 10:56 PM UTC

theophrastus wrote: post #13

dekhn wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That work is highly speculative (I've studied, but not as my primary work, enzyme kinetics and reaction mechanisms). Finding holes in transition state theory isn't hard and I don't see that it's necessary to invoke tunneling protons to come up with better theories. Even the physical experiments cited in the Ball article, are pretty speculative, and aren't accepted by the mainstream. I find it pretty amusing, because…

And i had a committee member forbid me from including quantum effects in the modeling of my enzyme. He said it was "too speculative". All science is speculative, until it isn't. You would be well served to reduce your "highly speculative" filters. That is, continue to propose your interesting new chains of causation. If there were braver people than me (which shouldn't be hard) then perhaps understanding enzyme mecha…