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The Levinthal paradox in molecular biology results from the observation that proteins are folded into their specific 3-D conformation from a specific linear sequence, in a timespan that is much shorter(milliseconds) than what would be expected if the molecule actually searched the entire conformation space for the lowest energy state. It is named after Cyrus Levinthal.
It has been argued that the paradox can be settled if one views each atom as independently computing in its neighbourhood, that is, the atoms compute in parallel whereas the theoretical calculation assumes a sequential search.
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