In article <8ct3en$d5$1 at news7.svr.pol.co.uk>, mdl24 <mdl24 at cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>Hello,
>>In Roger Penrose's book, The Emperor's New Mind, it is asserted that certain
>types of crystal formation may include non-local quantum effects. It occured
>to me that perhaps quantum effects are involved in protein folding - it is
>impossible for a protein to try every possible conformation sequentially so
>perhaps several different conformations are attempted in paralell.
>>Is this at all possible?
It sounds way cool, but why fish for the obscure before there is a
reason to doubt that protein folding may be understood as a result of
classical kinetics operating on a ball and stick molecule, the way we
often understand chemical reactions.
I think you may err in supposing that a folding protein molecule
"tries out every conformation". It's not solving a traveling salesman
problem; it's simply choosing a locally best route.
[I see you have added some heavy duty special purpose bio group, where
there may be people who really know about protein folding... so I
shall shortly find out, a poor generalist from sci.physics, if I know
the first thing about protein folding. You do realize this type of
cross- posting opens an interdimensional portal, through which
sci.physics cranks may invest your universe?]
