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The Power Stroke Mechanism of Muscle Contraction at the Confluence of Biology and Physics

While disproven by S. Carnot 200 years ago, corpuscularianism (the philosophy that the states of individual molecules determine the state of a system of those molecules) is still widely used to describe biological function. Nowhere is this more evident than in proposed power stroke mechanisms of muscle contraction. Muscle's power stroke occurs when muscle shortens against a mechanical load, performing work over time. While many mechanisms have been proposed, the actual power stroke mechanism of muscle contraction remains contested. Here I consider four distinctly different proposed mechanisms and assess their history and scientific merit. I show that over the past 65 years, molecular biologists have ignored Carnot for their corpuscular mechanic convictions in proposing a series of molecular power stroke mechanisms that regress from 19th century thermodynamics to an obsolete 17th century philosophy to a structural determinism invoked today that predates science. An isothermal power stroke in a thermodynamic muscle work loop, analogous to the power stoke in a Carnot cycle, rectifies this historic scientific blunder, defining the confluence of the bottom-up mechanics and chemistry of myosin motors and the top-down mechanics and chemistry of muscle. Specifically, created by thermal scaling, the increase in entropy with muscle's thermodynamic power stroke chemically exists within muscle and defines the irreversible energetics and kinetics of muscle contraction (the arrow of time).

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