The Bioenergetic Blueprint
Through this series of articles, I want to help you (and myself) build a comprehensive, bottom-up understanding of the basics of bioenergetics.
The Macro
First, let us zoom out and get a sense of the basic principles of energy: what it is, what it isn’t, and how it operates in nature and ourselves.
What is Energy?
The word “energy” is thrown around left and right in daily life. But what actually is energy? and what does it do?
Free & Unfree Energy
If the universe’s energy remains constant, how can disorder increase? Doesn’t more disorder imply less energy? Shouldn’t there always be enough energy to counteract disorder?
Forms of Energy
In the context of energy and thermodynamics, what is "work", exactly? What does it mean for energy to “do work”?
Energy & Bottom-Up Health
What exactly are all the calories you eat daily needed for? Why do you need to produce so much energy just to live? And why do you need to eat food every single day in order to synthesize it? Why can’t you just eat food once and be done with it?
The Micro
Then, let us zoom in and learn how exactly atoms orchestrate their relationships to form matter.
The Humble Atom
Around 400 BC, pre-Socratic thinker Democritus proposed the avant-garde idea that all matter is made up of tiny, “indivisible” particles known as atomos (Greek word for “uncuttable”). More than twenty-two centuries later, he was proven right.
Electron Clouds
We now know a bit more about the atom and its electron configuration. But there is another—more accurate—way to capture the true nature of electron behavior: not representing them through orbits, but orbitals (which, despite sounding similar, are very different things). We introduce them in this article, and go over their main characteristics.
When Atoms Meet
Atoms rarely exist in isolation, so... what happens when they meet? How do orbitals adapt to allow atoms to bond with one another? And how do these bonds influence the way molecules behave?