Reaction Kinetics of a Long Chain Molecule

A derivation based on combinatorial analysis is presented for the equations of the kinetics of reactions of sites on a long chain molecule, wherein the first‐order kinetics depend on the states of the nearest neighbors. The derivation results in a set of differential equations practically identical to those recently developed by J. B. Keller; however, a more fundamental hypothesis has replaced Keller's hypothesis concerning the distribution of reacted sites. The analysis admits a greater choice of initial conditions, and also yields directly the distribution of sequences of k unreacted sites.