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The Science Seminar Series: August 30, 2012
DNA Breathing and Country Size
Dr. Jonghoon Kang
Department of Biology
Valdosta State University
Time: 4:00 -5:00pm
Abstract
There are currently 251 countries in the world. The sizes of countries vary greatly: the ratio of the largest to the smallest is more than seven orders of magnitude. One can easily predict that a country size depends on several factors: one is geographical such as ocean, mountains, and lakes and the other is artificial such as politics, economics, and warfare. However, it is virtually impossible to derive the size of a country from those factors. In this talk I will show that the distribution of country sizes can be described by generalized Boltzmann-Gibbs statistics with an assumption that it is a quantum mechanical vibration system. I will compare the energy associated with the distribution with that of “breathing” of a simple DNA molecule.