PPT Slide
proteins cannot randomly fold until free energy is minimized - it would take far too long:
consider a protein of 250 amino acids...
if you assume that each aa can “try” 3 random positions, that is 3250 positions. If each try takes 10-13 seconds, it would take 3250 x 10-13 seconds = 10106 seconds = 3.2 x 1098 years, far more time than the age of the known universe!