The central premise of the steady state approximation is that the rate of formation of an intermediate is equal to the rate of its consumption. Mathematically, this can be expressed as:
$$\frac{d[I]}{dt} \approx 0$$
where \([I]\) is the concentration of the intermediate. By setting the rate of change of the intermediate's concentration to zero, we can derive a relationship between the rates of the forward and reverse steps in the reaction mechanism.
