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Brownian motor

Brownian motor

Overview
Brownian motors are nano-scale or molecular devices by which thermally activated processes (chemical reactions) are controlled and used to generate directed motion in space and to do mechanical or electrical work. These tiny engines operate in an environment where viscosity
Viscosity
Viscosity is a measure of the resistance of a fluid which is being deformed by either shear stress or extensional stress. In everyday terms , viscosity is "thickness." Thus, water is "thin," having a lower viscosity, while honey is "thick," having a higher viscosity...

 dominates inertia
Inertia
Inertia is the resistance of any physical object, to a change in its state of motion. It is represented numerically by an object's mass. The principle of inertia is one of the fundamental principles of classical physics which are used to describe the motion of matter and how it is affected by...

, and where thermal noise makes moving in a specific direction as difficult as walking in a hurricane: the forces impelling these motors in the desired direction are minuscule in comparison with the random forces exerted by the environment.
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Encyclopedia
Brownian motors are nano-scale or molecular devices by which thermally activated processes (chemical reactions) are controlled and used to generate directed motion in space and to do mechanical or electrical work. These tiny engines operate in an environment where viscosity
Viscosity
Viscosity is a measure of the resistance of a fluid which is being deformed by either shear stress or extensional stress. In everyday terms , viscosity is "thickness." Thus, water is "thin," having a lower viscosity, while honey is "thick," having a higher viscosity...

 dominates inertia
Inertia
Inertia is the resistance of any physical object, to a change in its state of motion. It is represented numerically by an object's mass. The principle of inertia is one of the fundamental principles of classical physics which are used to describe the motion of matter and how it is affected by...

, and where thermal noise makes moving in a specific direction as difficult as walking in a hurricane: the forces impelling these motors in the desired direction are minuscule in comparison with the random forces exerted by the environment. Because this type of motor is so strongly dependent on random thermal noise, Brownian motors are feasible only at the nanometer scale.

In biology, many protein-based molecular motors
Molecular motors
Molecular motors are biological molecular machines that are the essential agents of movement in living organisms. Generally speaking, a motor may be defined as a device that consumes energy in one form and converts it into motion or mechanical work; for example, many protein-based molecular motors...

 in the cell may in fact be Brownian motors. These molecular motors convert the chemical energy present in ATP
Adenosine triphosphate
Adenosine-5'-triphosphate is a multifunctional nucleotide that plays an important role in cell biology as a coenzyme, that is, the "molecular unit of currency" of intracellular energy transfer. ATP transports chemical energy within cells for metabolism...

 into mechanical energy. One example of a Brownian motor would be an ATPase motor that hydrolyzes ATP to generate fluctuating anisotropic energetic potentials. The anisotropic potentials along the path would bias the motion of a particle (like an ion or polypeptide); the result would essentially be diffusion of a particle whose net motion is strongly biased in one direction. The translocation of the particle would only be loosely coupled
Loose coupling
The notion of loose coupling is found in computer systems, and was introduced into organizational studies by Karl Weick. Sub-areas include the coupling of classes, interfaces, data, and services.- Loose object coupling in computing :...

 to hydrolysis of ATP.

The dynamics and activity of Brownian motors are current topics of study in theoretical and experimental biophysics
Biophysics
Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that employs and develops theories and methods of the physical sciences for the investigation of biological systems . Studies included under the branches of biophysics span all levels of biological organization, from the molecular scale to whole organisms...

. Brownian motors are sometimes modeled using the Fokker-Planck equation
Fokker-Planck equation
The Fokker–Planck equation describes the time evolution of the probability density function of the position of a particle, and can be generalized to other observables as well....

 or with Monte Carlo method
Monte Carlo method
Monte Carlo methods are a class of computational algorithms that rely on repeated random sampling to compute their results. Monte Carlo methods are often used when simulating physical and mathematical systems. Because of their reliance on repeated computation of random or pseudo-random numbers,...

s. Many researchers are presently engaged in understanding how molecular-scale motors operate in environments with non-negligible thermal noise. The thermodynamics of such motors is constrained by the ramifications of the Fluctuation Theorem
Fluctuation theorem
The fluctuation theorem which originated from statistical mechanics deals with the relative probability that the entropy of a system which is currently away from thermodynamic equilibrium will increase or decrease over a given amount of time...

s, Pumping Quantization Theorems , and Pumping-Restriction Theorems .

See also

  • Brownian ratchet
    Brownian ratchet
    The Brownian ratchet is a thought experiment about an apparent perpetual motion machine conceived by Richard Feynman in a physics lecture at the California Institute of Technology on May 11, 1962 as an illustration of the laws of thermodynamics...

  • Brownian motion
    Brownian motion
    Brownian motion is the seemingly random movement of particles suspended in a fluid or the mathematical model used to describe such random movements, often called a particle theory....

  • Fluctuation Theorem
    Fluctuation theorem
    The fluctuation theorem which originated from statistical mechanics deals with the relative probability that the entropy of a system which is currently away from thermodynamic equilibrium will increase or decrease over a given amount of time...

  • Protein dynamics
  • Robert Brown (botanist)
    Robert Brown (botanist)
    Robert Brown FRS was a Scottish botanist who made important contributions to botany largely through his pioneering use of the microscope...


External articles