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Systems do not contain work, but can perform work, and likewise, in formal thermodynamics, systems do not contain heat, but can transfer heat. Informally, however, a difference in the energy of a system that occurs solely because of a difference in its temperature is commonly called heat , and the energy that flows across a boundary as a result ...
For example, values of the Gibbs energy obtained from high-temperature equilibrium emf methods must be identical to those calculated from calorimetric measurements of the enthalpy and entropy values. The database provider must use recognized data analysis procedures to resolve differences between data obtained by different types of experiments.
A prime example of this irreversibility is the transfer of heat by conduction or radiation. It was known long before the discovery of the notion of entropy that when two bodies, initially of different temperatures, come into direct thermal connection, then heat immediately and spontaneously flows from the hotter body to the colder one.
Thermodynamics is expressed by a mathematical framework of thermodynamic equations which relate various thermodynamic quantities and physical properties measured in a laboratory or production process. Thermodynamics is based on a fundamental set of postulates, that became the laws of thermodynamics.
For example, if the gas expands slowly against the piston, the work done by the gas to raise the piston is the force F times the distance d. But the force is just the pressure P of the gas times the area A of the piston, F = PA. [4] Thus W = Fd; W = PAd; W = P(V 2 − V 1) figure 3
The first law of thermodynamics is essentially a definition of heat, i.e. heat is the change in the internal energy of a system that is not caused by a change of the external parameters of the system. However, the second law of thermodynamics is not a defining relation for the entropy.
For non-equilibrium thermodynamics, a suitable set of identifying state variables includes some macroscopic variables, for example a non-zero spatial gradient of temperature, that indicate departure from thermodynamic equilibrium. Such non-equilibrium identifying state variables indicate that some non-zero flow may be occurring within the ...
The distinction between intensive and extensive properties has some theoretical uses. For example, in thermodynamics, the state of a simple compressible system is completely specified by two independent, intensive properties, along with one extensive property, such as mass. Other intensive properties are derived from those two intensive variables.