Maxwell Relations - Equation

Equation

The Maxwell relations are statements of equality among the second derivatives of the thermodynamic potentials. They follow directly from the fact that the order of differentiation of an analytic function of two variables is irrelevant. If Φ is a thermodynamic potential and xi and xj are two different natural variables for that potential, then the Maxwell relation for that potential and those variables is:

Maxwell relations (general)

\frac{\partial }{\partial x_j}\left(\frac{\partial \Phi}{\partial x_i}\right)= \frac{\partial }{\partial x_i}\left(\frac{\partial \Phi}{\partial x_j}\right)

where the partial derivatives are taken with all other natural variables held constant. It is seen that for every thermodynamic potential there are n(n − 1)/2 possible Maxwell relations where n is the number of natural variables for that potential.

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