Like everything in nature, molecules strive to reach the lowest possible energy state. This makes it practical to describe reactions using energy surfaces. A molecule on an energy surface tries, like a child in a water-slide, to reach the lowest point. You need enough speed (high energy) to get up over the crest.
     The picture below shows the ring opening of a cyclo-butane molecule to form two ethylene molecules. Zewail studied this reaction by exciting cyclopentanone molecules with a femtosecond pulse. He could show that this reaction occurs via a transition state living a few hundred femtoseconds. This experiment settled an old argument over whether the reaction takes place in one step with simultaneous breaking of both bonds or in two steps, one bond breaking before the other.