The temperature jump method is a technique used in chemical kinetics for the measurement of very rapid reaction rates. It is one of a class of chemical relaxation methods pioneered by the German physical chemist Manfred Eigen in the 1950s. In these methods, a reacting system initially at equilibrium is perturbed rapidly and then observed as it relaxes back to equilibrium. In the case of temperature jump, the perturbation involves rapid heating which changes the value of the equilibrium constant, followed by relaxation to equilibrium at the new temperature.