In physics and biochemistry, an energy landscape is a mapping of all possible conformations of a molecular entity, or the spatial positions of interacting molecules in a system, and their corresponding energy levels, typically Gibbs free energy, on a two- or three-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system.
The term is useful when examining protein folding; while a protein can theoretically exist in a nearly infinite number of conformations along its energy landscape, in reality proteins fold (or "relax") into secondary and tertiary structures that possess the lowest possible free energy. The key concept in the energy landscape approach to protein folding is the folding funnel hypothesis.
In glassing models, the local minima of an energy landscape correspond to metastable low temperature states of a thermodynamic system.
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Famous quotes containing the words energy and/or landscape:
“Violence among young people ... is an aspect of their desire to create. They don’t know how to use their energy creatively so they do the opposite and destroy.”
—Anthony Burgess (b. 1917)
“When it comes, the Landscape listens—
Shadows—hold their breath—
When it goes, ‘tis like the Distance
On the look of Death—”
—Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)