Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
A direct experimental evidence for the production of conformons from ATP
hydrolysis in the F1-ATPase was recently reported by Uchihashi et al. (2011;
Junge and M
€
uller 2011). Using the high-speed AFM (atomic force microscopy),
these authors succeeded in visualizing the propagation of the
conformational waves
of the
b
subunits in the counterclockwise direction around the isolated F
1
stator ring
without the central
ge
subunits (see Fig. 2a in Uchihashi et al. 2011). These
conformational waves
are identical to what Green and I defined as
conformons
in
1972 (Green and Ji 1972a, b; Ji 1974b, 2000; also see Chap.
8
) and thus provide
the
best experimental evidence reported do date that verifies the theoretical concept of
the conformon
.
11.7 Molecular Machines as Maxwell's “Angels”
In 1867, in a letter to Peter G. Tait, James C. Maxwell (1831-1879) described a
microscopic “being” capable of separating fast moving molecules from slow
moving ones into two compartments, thereby decreasing the entropy of the system,
“without expenditure of work”. Such a “being” was named “Maxwell's demon” in
1874 by William Thompson (1824-1907), implying the mediating, rather than the
malevolent, connotation of the word. Maxwell describes his intelligent, micro-
scopic “being” as follows:
...
if we conceive of a being whose faculties are so sharpened that he can follow every
molecule in its course, such a being, whose attributes are as essentially finite as our own,
would be able to do what is impossible to us. For we have seen that molecules in a vessel
full of air at uniform temperature are moving with velocities by no means uniform, though
the mean velocity of any great number of them, arbitrarily selected, is almost exactly
uniform. Now let us suppose that such a vessel is divided into two portions, A and B, by a
division in which there is a small hole, and that a being, who can see the individual
molecules, opens and closes this hole, so as to allow only the swifter molecules to pass
from A to B, and only the slower molecules to pass from B to A. He will thus, without
expenditure of work, raise the temperature of B and lower that of A, in contradiction to the
second law of thermodynamics.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell's_demon)
To me, Maxwell's “being” violates the second law of thermodynamics basically
because he “'opens' and 'closes' this hole
...
without expenditure of work”.
According to the second law of thermodynamics, no work of any kind can be
performed without dissipating energy into heat, i.e., without increasing the
entropy of the system which, in this case, consists of both gas molecules and
Maxwell's “being”. A more rigorous proof of a similar kind was formulated by
L´o Szil´rd in 1929. Many other proofs are now available to show that Maxwell's
“being” violates the second law of thermodynamics (Leff and Rex 1962; Maruyama
et al. 2009).
Maxwell's “being” can carry out his assigned task without violating the second
law of thermodynamics
if and only if
he dissipates the requisite energy into heat -
in other words, if and only if he receives energy from and dissipates heat into his
environment while performing his molecular work. That is, Maxwell's “being” can
...
