Specifically for protein folding: no, it does not decrease monotonically, unless you look at it from such a large distance that you can ignore thermal noise.
Proteins fold in a soup of water and other garbage, and for anything complicated there are going to be a lot of folding steps which are only barely above the thermal noise energy. Some proteins may even “fold” by performing a near-perfect random walk until they happen to fall into a valley that makes escape unlikely.
There may even be folding steps which are slightly disfavored, eg. require energy from the environment. Thermal noise can provide this energy for long enough that a second step can occur, leading to a more stable configuration.
Specifically for protein folding: no, it does not decrease monotonically, unless you look at it from such a large distance that you can ignore thermal noise.
Proteins fold in a soup of water and other garbage, and for anything complicated there are going to be a lot of folding steps which are only barely above the thermal noise energy. Some proteins may even “fold” by performing a near-perfect random walk until they happen to fall into a valley that makes escape unlikely.
There may even be folding steps which are slightly disfavored, eg. require energy from the environment. Thermal noise can provide this energy for long enough that a second step can occur, leading to a more stable configuration.
The folding steps aren’t linear paths though.