Closed Simple System
A common example in which the state can be succinctly described is a closed simple system in an equilibrium state. A closed simple system is an ideal system devoid of any internal adiabatic, rigid, or impermeable boundaries and not being acted upon by any external force fields or inertial forces. Based on observation, scientists and engineers have postulated that the state of a simple system at equilibrium can be completely characterized by specifying two independent property variables, such as temperature and pressure, and the masses of the particular chemical species in the system. Relying on this postulate, for many chemical species, phase distribution and intrinsic phase properties such as density, heat capacity, thermal conductivity, viscosity, enthalpy, and entropy have been reproducibly measured and catalogued as functions of temperature and pressure.
Read more about this topic: Thermodynamic State
Famous quotes containing the words closed, simple and/or system:
“Pray but one prayer for me ‘twixt thy closed lips,
Think but one thought of me up in the stars.”
—William Morris (1834–1896)
“I thought how sadly beauty of inscape was unknown and buried away from simple people and yet how near at hand it was if they had eyes to see it and it could be called out everywhere again.”
—Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889)
“We recognize caste in dogs because we rank ourselves by the familiar dog system, a ladderlike social arrangement wherein one individual outranks all others, the next outranks all but the first, and so on down the hierarchy. But the cat system is more like a wheel, with a high-ranking cat at the hub and the others arranged around the rim, all reluctantly acknowledging the superiority of the despot but not necessarily measuring themselves against one another.”
—Elizabeth Marshall Thomas. “Strong and Sensitive Cats,” Atlantic Monthly (July 1994)