Equation 5 · Part 2 · The Arrow of Time and the Engine of Evolution
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What this part means
Capital delta attached to a quantity marks a difference between two values of that quantity; the article’s sign convention determines the order.
Its job in the formula
Capital delta attached to a quantity marks a difference between two values of that quantity; the article’s sign convention determines the order.
Full expression→change→Article meaning
The passage around this formula
Christopher Jarzynski’s 1997 equality was the opening result. For a system beginning in thermal equilibrium and then driven away from it by an arbitrarily fast, arbitrarily far-from-equilibrium protocol, the exponential average of the work W performed on it recovers the equilibrium free-energy difference F between the protocol’s start and end points exactly:
Learn the underlying idea
Addition combines quantities; subtraction measures the signed difference between them. Parentheses show what is combined before the rest of the expression is evaluated.
Open the illustrated addition and subtraction in an equation guide →
Sources cited in the article section
- [5] Nonequilibrium Equality for Free Energy Differences ↗
- [6] Entropy production fluctuation theorem and the nonequilibrium work relation for free energy differences ↗
- [7] Verification of the Crooks fluctuation theorem and recovery of RNA folding free energies ↗
These citations provide research context; check each source for the exact claim it supports.