Applications of Kinetic Theory: Feynman's Physics Explained
Statistical ideas reach far and wide. The rate a liquid evaporates, the way electrons boil off a hot filament, the ionization of a hot gas, and the speed of chemical reactions are all governed by the same rule: a particle must gather enough energy to climb over a barrier, and the chance of having that energy is the Boltzmann factor, e^(-E/kT). That exponential is why such processes are so dramatically sensitive to temperature.
The big idea
Crossing an energy barrier depends exponentially on temperature.
Think about it
Why does a small rise in temperature speed up so many reactions far more than you'd expect?
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