Re: AMBER: Explanation of the energy unit ?

From: Carlos Simmerling <carlos.simmerling.gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2008 16:16:16 -0400

the quote from me is a bit out of context, the previous part of that
sentence said this is why people use intensive units, not that it is
why amber reports energies per mole.

On Mon, Sep 8, 2008 at 4:15 PM, Marek Malý <maly.sci.ujep.cz> wrote:
> Hi Gustavo,
>
> thanks for your contribution.
>
> As I see you just repeated my interpretation (pls see my last contribution
> in detail)
> so of course that I have to agree with your opinion regarding to [kcal/mol]
> unit understanding.
>
> Regarding to Carlos reaction I only noticed that Carlos sentence:
>
> "...that is that the energy reported does not depend on how
> many molecules you are measuring/simulating."
>
> is not probably valid.
>
> which is true since from my simple exmple with H2O follows that
> energy in [kcal/mol] unit depends on number of simulated molecules H2O and
> constant is only number E/N where E is the energy and N number of H2O
> molecules.
>
> From this point of view unit [kcal/mol] behave quite the same like another
> energy units
> like "J", "kcal", "eV" and if I am not wrong Carlos wanted to show that this
> not true,
> that [kcal/mol] behave differently.
>
> But maybe that I didn't understand above Carlos sentence well.
>
> I think that the interpretation of [kcal/mol] unit is now clear to all :))
> but
> still is here question (at least on my side) why was this special unit
> introduced.
>
> Marek
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Dne Mon, 08 Sep 2008 21:07:28 +0200 Gustavo Seabra
> <gustavo.seabra.gmail.com> napsal/-a:
>
>> Hi Marek,
>>
>> Carlos point is indeed valid. What you are missing here is that the
>> results you get are for one mole *of your system*, whatever it is. If
>> you system has N1 molecules of water, then the results in kcal/mol
>> mean y kcal in 1 mole * N1 molecules of water. Obviously, the results
>> from a different number of water molecules in your system will have to
>> be different. Of course, then, E1/N1 should be approximately equal to
>> E2/N2, and that's what your results show.
>> (http://physics.ujep.cz/~mmaly/UnitDiscussion/)
>>
>> Gustavo.
>>
>> On Mon, Sep 8, 2008 at 3:02 PM, Marek Malý <maly.sci.ujep.cz> wrote:
>>>
>>> Dear Carlos,
>>>
>>> if I understood well (and seems to me that Prof. Case confirmed that
>>> yes),
>>> your sentence
>>>
>>> "...that is that the energy reported does not depend on how
>>>>
>>>> many molecules you are measuring/simulating."
>>>
>>> is not probably valid.
>>>
>>> It means that if I simulate for simplicity N1 molecules of H2O with the
>>> total energy of this system E1[kcal/mol] and
>>> than I simulate N2 molecules of H2O (under the same physical conditions
>>> like
>>> in first case) with the total energy
>>> E2[kcal/mol] than if N1 is different from N2 than also E1 will be
>>> different
>>> from E2.
>>> In other words reported numbers E1,E2 are not energies of one mol of H2O
>>> in
>>> given conditions but:
>>>
>>> E1 = energy of N1 x NA molecules = N1 moles of H2O measured in [kcal]
>>> E2 = energy of N2 x NA molecules = N2 moles of H2O measured in [kcal]
>>>
>>> This conclusion should be OK if the results from previous communication
>>> is
>>> OK.
>>> Also my experiences agree with the conclusion that we should think about
>>> one
>>> mole
>>> of "whole systems" and not about one mole of molecules when we would like
>>> interpret
>>> unit [kcal/mol].
>>>
>>> So I think this is probably different for example from the molar heat
>>> capacity of water which
>>> really gives me the heat which is necessary to add to one mole of H2O
>>> molecules to cause increase
>>> 1K in temperature.
>>>
>>> The hypothesis that we should think about energy one mole of "whole
>>> systems"
>>> not about mole of
>>> some subunits i.e. "molecules" in interpretation of [kcal/mol] unit is
>>> clear
>>> also from the fact, that in practice we are often dealing
>>> with heterogenous, complex systems where you can not say: "This system is
>>> composed of N of one type molecules, hence is resonable to deal
>>> with energy of one mole of this molecules in given conditions."
>>>
>>> Here:
>>>
>>> http://physics.ujep.cz/~mmaly/UnitDiscussion/
>>>
>>> are results from 3 simulations of H2O in Materials Studio. All under the
>>> same conditions.
>>> There are 3 cases: 100,200,300 molecules of H2O. It is pretty seen that
>>> the
>>> energies
>>> measured in [kcal/mol] are in all three cases different.
>>>
>>> I think that similar results (at least qualitatively) gives us
>>> calculation
>>> of the same
>>> systems in Amber.
>>>
>>> Marek
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Dne Mon, 08 Sep 2008 16:56:48 +0200 Carlos Simmerling
>>> <carlos.simmerling.gmail.com> napsal/-a:
>>>
>>>> your questions aren't quite clear, but if you mean why are the units
>>>> in per mole, it's because it is much easier (both in experiment and
>>>> computation) to deal with units that are intensive rather than
>>>> extensive, that is that the energy reported does not depend on how
>>>> many molecules you are measuring/simulating.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Sep 8, 2008 at 11:01 AM, Marek Malý <maly.sci.ujep.cz> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Dear Prof. Case,
>>>>>
>>>>> thank you very much for your answer which
>>>>> made me sure that my interpretation of
>>>>> the [kcal/mol] unit is OK.
>>>>>
>>>>> The second part of my question:
>>>>>
>>>>> "The sense (background) of this "strange" unit" is unfortunately still
>>>>> nonanswered.
>>>>>
>>>>> I have to say that in relevant Wikipedia page:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Units_of_energy
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> is zero information about this unit which is very strange to me
>>>>> since in computational(and probably not only computational) chemistry
>>>>> is
>>>>> this (at least it seems to me)
>>>>> energy unit standard. So maybe it would be worth to spend some time
>>>>> to amend information about this unit in above Wikipedia page include
>>>>> the
>>>>> right
>>>>> interpretation and some background. Of course I do not mean that it is
>>>>> task
>>>>> for you
>>>>> personally :)), but for anybody who knows the right answers.
>>>>>
>>>>> I think that could be interesting to answer question:
>>>>> "What was the reason for introducing energy unit which gives me energy
>>>>> of
>>>>> NA
>>>>> my systems in [kcal] or in another
>>>>> words what was the reason to introduce energy unit which is NA times
>>>>> smaller
>>>>> than [kcal] ?"
>>>>>
>>>>> Is it because the relevant energies expressed using this small unit are
>>>>> usually "nice" numbers like 30.56, 400.78 and
>>>>> not numbers like 30.56 * 10^-n ... which should appear using any other
>>>>> energetical unit or is there some
>>>>> deeper background ? I think that there should be some deeper background
>>>>> since there is use precisely Avogadro
>>>>> constant in relationship with [kcal].
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Marek
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Dne Mon, 08 Sep 2008 00:12:22 +0200 David A. Case
>>>>> <case.biomaps.rutgers.edu>
>>>>> napsal/-a:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On Sat, Sep 06, 2008, Marek Malý wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Let's assume that we have some molecular system Y and we for example
>>>>>>> calculate the total energy of this system. Lets say that result is
>>>>>>> X[kcal/mol].
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> My only interpretation is that X is the energy in [kcal] of NA
>>>>>>> systems
>>>>>>> Y.
>>>>>>> So if I want energy of one system Y in [kcal] it is X/NA. Where NA
>>>>>>> is
>>>>>>> Avogadro constant.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This is correct. 1 cal = 4.184 J (exactly). See wikipedia (or other
>>>>>> places) for a discussion of its history and use.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ...dac
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> The AMBER Mail Reflector
>> To post, send mail to amber.scripps.edu
>> To unsubscribe, send "unsubscribe amber" (in the *body* of the email)
>> to majordomo.scripps.edu
>>
>> __________ Informace od NOD32 3426 (20080908) __________
>>
>> Tato zprava byla proverena antivirovym systemem NOD32.
>> http://www.nod32.cz
>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Tato zpráva byla vytvořena převratným poštovním klientem Opery:
> http://www.opera.com/mail/
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> The AMBER Mail Reflector
> To post, send mail to amber.scripps.edu
> To unsubscribe, send "unsubscribe amber" (in the *body* of the email)
> to majordomo.scripps.edu
>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The AMBER Mail Reflector
To post, send mail to amber.scripps.edu
To unsubscribe, send "unsubscribe amber" (in the *body* of the email)
      to majordomo.scripps.edu
Received on Wed Sep 10 2008 - 06:07:30 PDT
Custom Search