Before proceeding to determine the meaning of the term kinetics, we are going to proceed to discover its etymological origin. Specifically, it derives from the Greek, it is exactly the result of the sum of these two components:
-The noun “kinesis”, which can be translated as “movement”.
-The suffix “-tikos” or “-tika”, which is used to indicate “relative to”.
The idea of kinetics has several uses. In the field of physics, it is used to refer to what is linked to movement.
Specifically, the specialty of physics focused on the analysis of motion is called kinetics or kinematics, leaving aside the study of the forces that originate it. Kinetics, in this framework, usually study the trajectory of a moving body as a function of time.
The acceleration and speed are the most common magnitudes with which it works kinetics. These data allow the description of changes in body position over time. The speed is calculated by dividing the space traveled and the time taken: if an object traveled two hundred kilometers in two hours, its average speed is 100 kilometers per hour. Acceleration, on the other hand, is obtained by dividing the change in speed and the time that was used.
In the same way, we cannot ignore the existence of what is known as enzyme kinetics. This is a term that is used to refer to the discipline that comes to study what is the speed of chemical reactions that have the particularity of being catalyzed by enzymes.
Specifically, it is able to offer important data on the specificity of the enzyme in question and also on the mechanism of the so-called catalytic reaction.
In this type of discipline, terms and concepts such as the reaction progress curve, the initial reaction speed or the effect of the initial concentration, among others, are particularly relevant.
Within enzyme kinetics we have to establish that what is known as Michaelis Menten kinetics is very important, also known as the general theory of enzymes. It is an idea proposed by Michaelis and Maunt Menten at the beginning of the 20th century, specifically in 1903. The idea was that enzymes come to be modified with their substrate in order to form a complex.
Kinetic energy is called, on the other hand, the energy that a body has from its movement. When a body is at rest, accelerating it to a certain speed requires a certain amount of work. That energy that is obtained in acceleration, is conserved by the body as kinetic energy until it modifies its speed.
For chemistry, on the other hand, kinetics is the analysis of the speed with which different processes develop. Known as chemical kinetics, it is focused on how quickly reactions take place.
