The Cell Is a Converter, Not a Generator

You'll learnwhy a cell only converts energy — never creates it — as it flows from sun to work.

No cell has ever made a joule. Every scrap of energy your muscles spend arrived as sunlight, got packed into a sugar, got shuttled through ATP, and will leave as heat — transformed at every step, created at none of them. Eleven short steps; press Next for each one.

AP BIOLOGY · 11 STEPS · 6 QUICK CHECKS · ENERGY TRANSFORMED, NEVER CREATED · ΔG < 0 = EXERGONIC · BREAKING A BOND COSTS · v6

ATP · ΔG · transformed, never created

Before you start

What you're looking at

An energy-transfer chain across the screen: sunlight to glucose to ATP to cellular work, with red arrows leaking heat at each step.

The question

At which arrow is new energy created — and what happens to the energy that leaks away?

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