And Yet It Rotates: The Starter for a Molecular Wankel Motor

摘要

The transfer of everyday objects, even complex ones such as machines, to the molecular level marks the ultimate limit of miniaturization. Many such analogies are known in chemistry, for example molecular containers, molecular sieves, and molecular switches. "Molecular motors" appears to be a very attractive term that has been taken up by biophysicists, referring to the biological molecular machines that are the essential agents of movement in living organisms. These biological molecular motors are typically complex protein assemblies and hence are based on a very generous interpretation of the term "molecular".