
Two random girls American Libb Thims, in circa 1990, picked up at waterpark, somewhere in Michigan (or Ohio), sitting on Thims' car; albeit neither one of the 19 potential marriage partner girlfriends Thims conceptualized about in his circa 1992 mate variable "love though experiment" spreadsheet (shown below) selection methodology.

Two random girls American Libb Thims, in circa 1990, picked up at waterpark, somewhere in Michigan (or Ohio), sitting on Thims' car; albeit neither one of the 19 potential marriage partner girlfriends Thims conceptualized about in his circa 1992 mate variable "love though experiment" spreadsheet (shown below) selection methodology.

In thought experiments, Thims thought experiment, or “Thims love thought experiment”, a modern-day free energy version of the affinity chemistry based Goethe “love thought experiment” (1808), refers to the chemical thermodynamics based mate selection thought experiment conceived in circa 1995 by American electrochemical engineer Libb Thims, according to which a person selects mates based on Gibbs free energy change, in the same manner as a physical chemist or chemical engineer would determine the feasibility or spontaneity of any given chemical reaction using free energy tables. Thims’ publications, theories, and work, e.g. Hmolpedia, are a direct precipitate of this one thought experiment, reconstruction of which is outlined below:

Attribute selection method
In circa 1992-1993, while grappling with a number of deeper philosophical questions surrounding human existence (see: history), American college student Libb Thims, in an attempt to figure out how to go about choosing who to marry—as this is supposed to be a step, according to cultural protocol, in the public standard model of existence—made an excel spreadsheet style table of the top nineteen girlfriends, whom he could potentially marry, listing each person on the horizontal and listing a range of point ranked attributes, qualities, or factors on the vertical, such as “grandmother would like her”, spontaneity, fun factor, physical attraction factors, mental attraction factors, repulsive factors, etc., in an attempt to get a numerical "marriage quality value" for each girlfriend.

The original table spreadsheet has since been destroyed (similar to Goethe who destroyed all the notes, tables, and drafts that went into his Elective Affinities). A mock reconstruction of Thims' circa 1992 trait-based mate selection table, using random female photos (and hotness rating) from Pictures2Rate.com and mock traits (and scores), is shown below:

The resulting solutions, however, did not seem to intuitively make any sense. The one who is physically the "hottest" according to general opinion is female #18 (Ella), who scores 7.7 on the hot or not 1-10 scale. Heat, however, as Thims would come to learn, if this number is indeed representative of physical heat, is not the sole determining factor of whether a reaction will go, as the debacle of the famous thermal theory of affinity showed. The one who scores the highest on the meta-ranking method is female #9 (Ava), who scores 140. Sometime herein, before, or after, Thims began to read up on mate selection, evolutionary psychology, physical attractiveness research, etc., to study the issue further (see: Thims' mate selection book collection).

To give some comparison, i.e. to exemplify standard or colloquial methods of mate selection, the following is a 2003 polling of 50 people, done by Thims, as to the top three methods he our she uses to select for spouses: [1]


A 2003 interview poll of 50 people: 22 men (left) and 28 women (right), conducted by American electrochemical engineer Libb Thims, on the rule of thumb methods men and women tend to use to select mates for marriage, supposing one was to give such advice to his or her nephew or niece on the matter. Each responded, male M or female F, was asked to provide three methods; responses of which are shown in the source column. [1]

A 2003 interview poll of 50 people: 22 men (left) and 28 women (right), conducted by American electrochemical engineer Libb Thims, on the rule of thumb methods men and women tend to use to select mates for marriage, supposing one was to give such advice to his or her nephew or niece on the matter. Each responded, male M or female F, was asked to provide three methods; responses of which are shown in the source column. [1]

Free energy selection method
In circa 1995, after taking courses in chemical thermodynamics and physical chemistry, and learning how reactions between different chemical species are predicted energetically, Thims began to muse about how this would be done chemical thermodynamically in regards to humans, even nearing the point of asking the question openly by raising his hand in his chemical engineering thermodynamics class. The following is the reformulated free energy based selection method table Thims hand in mind at this point (which, to note, is equivalent to Goethe's affinity table, affinity and free energy connected via the Goethe-Helmholtz equation):

Reaction #	A	+	B	→	C		ΔG (MJ/hmol)
	_____________________		_____________________			___
1	Thims	+	Lisa \| 5.0	→			-80
2	Thims	+	Sarah \| 6.2	→			+25
3	Thims	+	Jessica \| 6.1	→			0
4	Thims	+	Fay \| 5.6	→			+10
5	Thims	+	Tina \| 7.2	→			-20
6	Thims	+	Ashley \| 5.8	→			-30
7	Thims	+	Mary \| 5.9	→			-50
8	Thims	+	Sophia \| 6.7	→			+125
9	Thims	+	Ava \| 6.4	→			-75
10	Thims	+	Chloe \| 4.3	→			+50
11	Thims	+	Samantha \| 5.3	→			-125
12	Thims	+	Allison \| 5.2	→			+200
13	Thims	+	Addison \| 4.6	→			+10
14	Thims	+	Julia \| 6.0	→			-200
15	Thims	+	Brooke \| 6.0	→			-40
16	Thims	+	Lauren \| 6.2	→			+10
17	Thims	+	Claire \| 6.6	→			-25
18	Thims	+	Ella \| 7.7	→			+10
19	Thims	+	Aubrey \| 5.3	→			-15

The units listed above, to note, are retrospect units, in the sense that in circa 1995 Thims only had +/- conception of free energy change in his mind, i.e. that a negative free energy change is needed for a spontaneous, favorable, of feasible reaction, and that the more negative the value in magnitude the greater the spontaneity or favorableness of the reaction, as defined by the spontaneity criterion:

Condition
Description

$dG Reaction is spontaneous in the forward direction. 0 \,$ Reaction is nonspontaneous (reaction is favored in the opposite direction).
$dG = 0 \,$ System is at equilibrium (there is no net change).

Condition	Description
$dG Reaction is spontaneous in the forward direction. 0 \,$	Reaction is nonspontaneous (reaction is favored in the opposite direction).
$dG = 0 \,$	System is at equilibrium (there is no net change).

Hence, if the above values of Gibbs free energy change, per each human chemical reaction, were accurate, as based on measurement, then reaction #14 would be the most thermodynamically favored (Thims marrying Julia and making a family); reactions: #11 (-125 MJ/hmol), #1 (-80 MJ/hmol), #9 (-75 MJ/hmol), #7 (-50 MJ/hmol), #6 (-30 MJ/hmol), #15 (-40 MJ/hmol), #17 (-25 MJ/hmol), #5 (-20 MJ/hmol), and #19 (-15 MJ/hmol) would each also be favored energetically, albeit each to a lesser degree, respectively; reaction #3 (0 MJ/hmol) would be at equilibrium or characterized by no free energy change and hence one that was equally favored in the forward and backwards direction; and reactions: #4 (+10 MJ/hmol), #13 (+10 MJ/hmol), #16 (+10 MJ/hmol), #18 (+10 MJ/hmol), #2 (+25 MJ/hmol), #10 (+50 MJ/hmol), #8 (+125 MJ/hmol), and #12 (+200 MJ/hmol) would each be non-favored reactions, with increasing amounts, respectively, i.e. reactions that are thermodynamically impossible, unless energy were added to the reaction to make each go.

The "hmol" in the above table, to note, is assumed to be three human molecules and wherein a normal reproduction reaction is approximated as involving an average of 1,500 cal per day at 365 days per 18 years times 3 people involved in the reproduction and one child rearing process, which amounts to about 125 megajoules of energy.

Determinism
A salient point about the above logic, which is based on Gilbert Lewis' 1923 "universal rule" of chemical thermodynamics, is that the entire reaction process, and hence the details of the mechanism of human choice, is entirely based and predetermined on the measure of the free energy change for the process. This is summarize well by Canadian-American physical chemist Julie Forman-Kay: [2]

“Whether two molecules [or human molecules] will bind is [completely] determined by the free energy change of the interaction, composed of both enthalpic and entropic terms.”

This of course conflicts directly with ancient belief in free will, as dominantly rooted in Anunian theology, and the premise of the weighing of the soul, which in turn implies that global morality system will eventually need to be completely overhauled; hence the Goethean revolution.

Enthalpy and entropy
It would be a full seven years (2001) before he could figure out the nuts and bolts of how this free energy change could be quantified via enthalpy and entropy determinants (see: history):

ΔG = ΔH – TΔS

In more detail, the subject of the governing relation of the interactions of human relationship with that of chemical thermodynamics originated in circa 1995 during Thims' years as a chemical engineering thermodynamics student at the University of Michigan and his curiosity as to how the spontaneity criterion of chemical thermodynamics applies to the successfulness of mate selection or prediction in the action of love the chemical reaction. In this period, and the years to follow, Thims began to seek a thermodynamic understanding of the human existence process, especially as thermodynamics relates to mate selection and the nature of love; and sometime shortly thereafter, Thims discovered American evolutionary psychologist David Buss' newly-published 1994 book The Evolution of Desire, containing the results of a robust study on mate selection of 10,000 people of all ages from thirty-seven cultures worldwide, which presented a rather eye-opening and straight-forward look at the nuts and bolts of mate selection, in regards to what specific factors affect sexual attractiveness and sexual repulsiveness, from both the male and female perspective. Some of the first products of this efforts include the 2005 Journal of Human Thermodynamics, the 2007 textbook Human Chemistry, and the 2008 The Human Molecule, to name a few.

References
1. Thims, Libb. (2003). “How to Pick the Right One”, IoHT research project.
2. Forman-Kay, Julie D. (1999). “The ‘Dynamics’ in the Thermodynamics of Binding.” Nature Structure Biology, 6: 1086-87.