The missing link in the kinetic theory of chemical reactions and epidemics L. Vanel1* 1Institut Lumière Matière, Univ Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Univ Lyon, CNRS; F-69622, Villeurbanne, France. *Corresponding author. Email:
[email protected] In thermodynamics, affinity is the driving force of chemical reactions. At equilibrium, affinity is zero, and the reaction quotient equals the constant of equilibrium. Thermodynamics predicts the timescale of chemical reactions but not rate laws that are purely phenomenological relations. Here, we derive an affinity relaxation theory (ART) that predicts chemical rate laws. Strikingly, the simplest chemical reaction in the ART model has a close resemblance with epidemic models instead of the mass-action rate law, revealing that epidemic models are actually more accurate chemical rate laws than the mass-action law. However, epidemic models appear in turn as an approximation of the ART model, where conceptual incoherencies of epidemic models are exposed and resolved. Furthermore, the mathematical Gompertz solution of the model links chemical rate laws with empirical biological and cancer growth laws. The ART model provides an entirely new framework to describe dynamic phenomena in chemical reactions, epidemics and biology. Introduction The mass-action law introduced in 1864 by Guldberg and Waage (1) was the first equation linking the rate of a chemical reaction to the concentration of reactants. A main idea that quickly followed is that a reaction can occur in two opposite directions and that equilibrium corresponds to the point where the speeds of the forward and backward reaction cancel each other (2). Chemical thermodynamics established a long time ago that mass-action rate laws are compatible with the thermodynamic constant of equilibrium of a chemical reaction (3) and that rate constants depend on the reaction activation energy (4).