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Activation Energy

This video presents the same text shown beside it, spoken and on screen. It adds nothing the text does not say.

State

Activation energy is the minimum energy a properly oriented collision must supply for reactants to form products.

Show

A reaction diagram plots the energy needed to climb from reactants to the reaction's highest-energy point as its activation energy.

Watch for

Activation energy is unrelated to whether a reaction is overall exothermic or endothermic — both kinds of reaction still require energy to get started.