Thermodynamics, biochemistry and microscopy for the 21st century

Harold Hillman1

  • 1Unity Laboratory of Applied Neurobiology, 76 Epsom Road, Guildford, Surrey GUI 2BX, Great Britain.

Related Concept Videos

First Law of Thermodynamics00:37

First Law of Thermodynamics

The First Law of Thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed. This can be demonstrated within a classic food web where light energy from the sun is harnessed as radiant energy by plants, converted into chemical energy, and stored as complex carbohydrates. The vegetation is then consumed by animals and during the digestion process, the sugars release energy as heat. The sugars also produce chemical energy that either gets used up doing work, stored in...
The First Law of Thermodynamics01:13

The First Law of Thermodynamics

The first law of thermodynamics deals with the total amount of energy in the universe. It states that this total amount of energy is constant. In other words, there has always been, and always will be, exactly the same amount of energy in the universe. Energy exists in many different forms. According to the first law of thermodynamics, energy may transfer from place to place or transform into different forms, but it cannot be created or destroyed. The transfers and transformations of energy...
Thermodynamic Systems01:06

Thermodynamic Systems

A thermodynamic system is a set of objects whose thermodynamic properties are of interest. The system is considered to be embedded in its surroundings or the environment. The system and its environment can exchange heat and do work on each other through a boundary that separates them. However, the immediate surroundings of the system interact with it directly and therefore have a much stronger influence on its behavior and properties.
Consider an example of  tea boiling in a kettle. The tea and...
First Law of Thermodynamics01:17

First Law of Thermodynamics

A change in the internal energy of a system depends on the the net heat transfer into the system and the net work done by the system. The first law of thermodynamics, which is a generalized form of energy conservation, relates these three quantities mathematically. It states that the change in the internal energy equals the difference between the heat transfer and work done by the system.
The applied heat increases the internal energy of a system. Hence, conventionally heat is considered...
Thermodynamic Processes01:25

Thermodynamic Processes

A thermodynamic process is a path through a sequence of states that takes a system from an initial state to a final state. In a cyclic process, the system returns to its initial state, so the changes in state properties and state functions (ΔT, Δp, ΔV, ΔU, ΔH) over one complete cycle are zero. However, heat and work transfers can still occur during the cycle, and the net heat and net work over the cycle need not be zero.A reversible process occurs when the system is infinitesimally close to...
Thermodynamic Background01:18

Thermodynamic Background

The law of mass action states that "the rate of a chemical reaction is directly proportional to the product of the molar concentrations of the reactants." It means that the more 'active mass' or 'concentration' of the reactants present, the faster the reaction will proceed.In a chemical reaction, there are forward and reverse reactions. The forward reaction is the process where the reactants combine to form products. The reverse reaction is the process where the products break down to form the...