20.110/2.772  Thermodyncs of Biomolec Sys

Final exam reminders

Hi everyone,

Hope everything is going well prepping for tomorrow! Two quick reminders:

- You can bring 4 double sided sheets of notes to the final
- You will need a calculator that's able to do math and that does not communicate with the outside world.

See you tomorrow!

Announced on 19 December 2017  5:54  p.m. by Michael Birnbaum

Problem Set 2 solutions revised

Hi all,

As we discussed in recitation, the solutions to Problem Set 2, Problem 5 were incorrect, and have been revised on stellar. Let us know if you have any questions!

Best,
Joseph

Announced on 19 December 2017  3:11  p.m. by Joseph Don Berleant

Fill out course evals!

Hello everyone!

One last reminder to fill out the course evaluations for the class before evals close tomorrow at 9 am (http://web.mit.edu/subjectevaluation/evaluate.html) . This is a great way to leave your feedback for the class in order to help improve it for future students!

It's also a great way to leave feedback for the TAs, some of which hope to be professors some day :)

Good luck!
Your TAs

Announced on 17 December 2017  9:45  p.m. by Catherine G Roukhadze

Review Session Notes posted

Hello all!

The notes from the review session have been posted. Four parts have been posted: the thermo slides, the intro stat mech notes, the stat mech applications slides, and the solution to the stat mech example problem. You can find the setup for the example problem at the end of the stat mech slides.

Best of luck studying!
Your TAs

Announced on 17 December 2017  7:18  p.m. by Catherine G Roukhadze

Lecture 30 and Lecture 35 clarifications

Hi class,

A couple of clarifications.

- For apparent pKa, here's an image to clarify the logic (my example at the very end of class on Wednesday was not particularly clear, sorry about that): http://bit.ly/2ky75by

The concept to keep in mind is that if a protein residue is attached to a source of positive potential, that serves as a repulsive force for positive charge - this would make it more likely for the proton to dissociate from your residue (lowering the apparent pKa, making the residue seem more acidic). The converse would be true for a source of negative potential.

- In lecture 35, note a typo in the formula for root-mean-square distances when dealing with the characteristic ratio (it should be raised to the 1/2 power along with N). This has been updated in both the lecture notes and the polymer equation sheets.

Announced on 15 December 2017  7:19  p.m. by Michael Birnbaum