BIOL 201 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Reynolds Number, Moshing
26 Jan 2016
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Material in which organelles are embedded: cytoplasm is crowded. Ions, water (0. 1 nm: sugars, amino acids, small molecules, proteins, dna, rna (10-100 nm, organelles (1 m) As crowded as a protein crystal: protein crystals: 20-60% by weight, red blood cells: 35% protein by weight, dilute solution: ~0. 1% protein by weight, cytoplasm is a rough-and-tumble place. All the molecules are being violently collided into at all times. Molecules move continuously due to brownian motion. Molecules diffuse with a characteristic diffusion coefficient (d) Jiggling due to kinetic energy of heat, e. g. fat globules in diluted milk: smaller molecules faster diffusion, larger d. Brownian motion is a random walk : 50% chance of right step, 50% chance of left step, mean squared-displacement (x2) = 2 dt. It explores a lot of space, but on average you get nowhere: cytoplasm is viscous. Inertia: resistance of an object to any change in its state of motion. Viscosity: a measure of a fluid"s resistance to flow.
