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Showing posts with label adaptation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label adaptation. Show all posts

Le Chatelier’s Principle


This is one of the key principles we teach in General Chemistry. It is a very simple concept but with profound implications. “If a chemical system at equilibrium is stressed in some way away from equilibrium, the system will shift in such a way to relieve the stress and restore equilibrium.”

In other words, some chemical reactions reach a point at which the original reactants are forming products at the same rate that the products are reverting back to the reactants, so the net concentrations of each reactant or product remains constant. If you stress the system by changing the temperature, or by adding/removing one of the components of the system, the reaction will adjust to a new equilibrium with different concentrations than it had originally, but still constant once equilibrium is reached.

This principle is true of any dynamic system with equilibrium points, not just chemical ones.

The drought in Texas has stressed the equilibrium of the ecosystem, with the personally relevant effect of driving hot and thirsty fire ants from outside to inside my house, disturbing my personal equilibrium.

What You're Used To


Part of my wing of the chemistry building is undergoing a much needed renovation. This week however, they have to shut off ALL chilling water to my wing, which includes the air conditioning, to replace a pump or valve or something that services the part being renovated and my part of the wing. That’s fine, but we are having a heat wave with temperatures in the upper 90’s. Going through the door from the next wing into mine is like stepping into a rain forest. It makes me wonder—before central air, how did my predecessors do it?