What exactly is the meaning of the rate constant? Well, the rate constant is given by the following equation known as the radius equation. And this Iranius equation describes what the rate constant actually symbolizes. So the rate constant K is equal to the product of the frequency factor a and e to the power of negative EA divided by RT where r is the gas constant, t is the absolute temperature, EA is our activation energy. So right away, because the activation energy appears in this arrangeous equation, that means changing the activation energy changes the value of K. And so when an enzyme acts on a chemical reaction, it affects the k value. And that makes sense because we know that enzymes do not affect the concentrations of reactants or products.