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:
“Alas for the cripple Practice when it seeks to come up with the bird Theory, which flies before it. Try your design on the best school. The scholars are of all ages and temperaments and capacities. It is difficult to class them, some are too young, some are slow, some perverse. Each requires so much consideration, that the morning hope of the teacher, of a day of love and progress, is often closed at evening by despair.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“It would not be an easy thing to bring the water all the way to the plain. They would have to organize a great coumbite with all the peasants and the water would unite them once again, its fresh breath would clear away the fetid stink of anger and hatred; the brotherly community would be reborn with new plants, the fields filled with to bursting with fruits and grains, the earth gorged with life, simple and fertile.”
—Jacques Roumain (1907–1945)
“... the yearly expenses of the existing religious system ... exceed in these United States twenty millions of dollars. Twenty millions! For teaching what? Things unseen and causes unknown!... Twenty millions would more than suffice to make us wise; and alas! do they not more than suffice to make us foolish?”
—Frances Wright (1795–1852)