Chemistry Concept

[foodchain]

I am not pro enough at chemistry to know, but how complex can you make a equilibrium in terms of reactions.

 

If you had some organic compounds, or for that matter some RNA, could you develop a equilibrium for reactions that as products and reactants shift, the RNA molecule or whole set of reactions could develop over time as to make new products and reactants to enter into the equilibrium?

 

Such that maybe you had a single product/reactant set up going on, and then you added another chemical that could boost that up to two reactants/products, etc… Could you actually keep developing or adding on to that system. My idea would simply be to find a way to keep the whole series from ever being able to halt, even while it’s attempting to do such.

 

If such a concept has any validity I think it could be used to model how early life might have come about. Say you had some porous medium, maybe like a rock or clay, that filled, or was constantly being bombarded by all types or organic compounds, or even RNA itself and its precursors, I just wonder If having some kind of a equilibrium going on in constant flux in such a chemical environment could produce basically a “reaction engine” of such complexity that “mutation” would be an inevitable consequence. If that were the case constant pathways would be opened up to available reactions, which would wildly change all kinds of other variables like activation energies. I think this could produce all kinds of products like enzymes and or other catalysts, as a broad range of chemical variation could then occur.

 

I have no idea if such a concept though has any validity, or for that matter how difficult it would be to feed some reaction for a week or years.

[cpncoop]

A powerful concept... and yet not easy to duplicate... The first thing you need to understand is that any reaction, no matter how complete it seems, is in chemical equilibreum.... Furthermore, shifting these equilibrea isn't a simple matter.... I really enjoyed your post, and you've obviously thought about this alot.... I think that many times nature defies classical looks at equilibrea etc... (for example, there are many enzymes that can do things far better than any organic chemist)....