Sunday, September 6, 2009

Informative section headings

As I posted before, I really like the way that Phil Nelson uses informative section headings in his book, Biological Physics: Energy, Information, and Life. More of us need to do this in papers we write. Specifically, we need to go beyond Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion!

Here are some headings from the chapter I am currently reading:

6.2.2 Entropy is a constant times the maximal value of disorder

6.4.1 Entropy increases spontaneously when a constraint is removed

6.5.1 The free energy of a subsystem reflects the competition between entropy and energy

6.5.2 Entropic forces can be expressed as derivatives of the free energy

6.5.3 Free energy transduction is most efficient when it proceeds in small, controplled steps

6.6.3 The minimum free energy principle also applies to microspcopic subsystems

6.6.4 The free energy determines the populations of complex two-state systems

Here is a challenge for you. How many of these can you prove without looking at the book?

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