"A fire is not much more than a combination of carbon and oxygen, but the forests and coal mines of the world are not combusting at will because such a chemical reaction requires the input of a critical level of “activation energy” in order to get a reaction started. Two combustible elements alone are not enough." - Shane Parrish “The minimum energy which must be available to a chemical system with potential reactants to result in a chemical reaction.” - Gabriel Weinberg "In chemistry, activation energy is the energy which must be available to a chemical system with potential reactants to result in a chemical reaction.[1] Activation energy may also be defined as the minimum energy required to start a chemical reaction. The activation energy of a reaction is usually denoted by Ea and given in units of kilojoules per mole (kJ/mol) or kilocalories per mole (kcal/mol). Activation energy can be thought of as the height of the potential barrier (sometimes called the energy barrier) separating two minima of potential energy (of the reactants and products of a reaction). For a chemical reaction to proceed at a reasonable rate, there should exist an appreciable number of molecules with translational energy equal to or greater than the activation energy." - Wikipedia (James Clear )
Shane Parrish's Farnam Street Mental Model Guide https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/mental-models/ --- Gabriel Weinberg's Mental Models I Find Repeatedly Useful https://medium.com/@yegg/mental-models-i-find-repeatedly-useful-936f1cc405d" --- James Clear Mental Models Overview https://jamesclear.com/mental-models