about a boy analysis
...actions and must make them take place through very specific tricks. The cell may make use of just that one way in a thousand that the physicist ignores. The cell finds a way to make the reaction go at just the right moment and at the desired rate. The reaction may be improbable, but if it is thermodynamically possible, the cell will find a way to use it. Physically, all of us - you and I - are improbable. The probability of atoms happening to come together in the complex structure that makes up my body is so tiny that it is practically equal to zero. Another difference between the physical and biological approaches to the study of a reaction lies in the matter of isolation. The physicist is apt to attempt to isolate the reaction he wishes to study. In biology, single reactions are rarely encountered. Most biological reactions are parts of complex chains. They cannot be fully understood except as members of the chain, or even as parts of an entire living system - the living biological entity. For example, one of the most important biological reactions is the "electron flow" that underlies photosynthesis and biological oxidation. These processes generate the energy that keeps living systems going. In these reactions, electrons "flow" from molecule to molecule. If an electron moves from molecule A to molecule B, it leaves a positive electric charge on molecule A. This charge tends to pull the electron back toward A. Electrons could not move against such a strong electrostatic attraction. However, if molecule A is a member of a chain and simultaneously receives an electron from a third molecule, its positive charge will be neutralized. There will then be nothing to pull the electron back toward A. Thus, where electrons cannot move from A to B in an isolated system, they can "flow" without difficulty if A and B are members of a chain. Like many biological researchers, I have often worked for long periods, using all the tricks of chemistry, wave mechanics, and mathematics to understand a certain reaction. In the end, I have found that the cell carries out this reaction in the only way that it could be accomplished. In my long research career, one of the greatest mysteries to me was the way in which a living cell - without the aid of comp...