Concept.
Define one dimensionless contrast per balanced reaction using a single, consistent energetic basis. Pick the basis once for the study, scale it to bring typical magnitudes to order one, and maintain a sign convention where forward-favored cases yield a positive contrast.
What stays invariant
- Sign is unaffected by positive rescaling of energies or stoichiometric scaling (for balanced steps tallied consistently).
- Ordering by contrast is preserved under positive affine transforms of the underlying energetic differences.
- Numeric safety is handled later by alignment clamps; the contrast itself is not clamped.
Good practice
- Choose and publish a single lens (formation/bond, thermodynamic, redox, or vetted proxy).
- If any entry is unavailable, exclude the case or declare a bounded, named prior—don’t inject ad-hoc numbers.
- Record units, conversions, table/library versions, and rounding policy in the manifest.
Plain ASCII formulas (copy-ready)
Definition
E_broken = sum_over_bonds_broken(B_bond)
E_formed = sum_over_bonds_formed(B_bond)
e = (E_formed - E_broken) / E_unit
Sign convention
# e > 0 => more stabilization formed than broken (forward favored)
# e < 0 => net destabilization (forward disfavored)
Alternative lenses (choose ONE; same sign rule)
Thermodynamic: e = -(DeltaG) / G_unit
Redox: e = (n * F * DeltaE) / E_unit
Kinetic proxy: e = -(Ea / (R * T_unit)) # observation-only
Minimal pseudocode
input:
bonds_broken[], bonds_formed[], B_bond(.), E_unit > 0
E_broken := sum( B_bond(b) for b in bonds_broken )
E_formed := sum( B_bond(b) for b in bonds_formed )
e := (E_formed - E_broken) / E_unit
return e
Manifest note (publish)
lens_name, UnitName, UnitValue
sources (tables/schemes with versions)
rounding { mode:"bankers", decimals:6, when:"export" }
any priors used (named, bounded, scope)
Navigation
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Next – Alignment Assignment Direction (4.2, 4.3)
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