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A stationary object (or set of objects) is in "static equilibrium," which is a special case of mechanical equilibrium. A paperweight on a desk is an example of static equilibrium. Other examples include a rock balance sculpture, or a stack of blocks in the game of Jenga, so long as the sculpture or stack of blocks is not in the state of collapsing.
The static equilibrium of a particle is an important concept in statics. A particle is in equilibrium only if the resultant of all forces acting on the particle is equal to zero. In a rectangular coordinate system the equilibrium equations can be represented by three scalar equations, where the sums of forces in all three directions are equal ...
Mechanical equilibrium, the state in which the sum of the forces, and torque, on each particle of the system is zero; Radiative equilibrium, the state where the energy radiated is balanced by the energy absorbed; Secular equilibrium, a state of radioactive elements in which the production rate of a daughter nucleus is balanced by its own decay rate
A few different types of equilibrium are listed below. Thermal equilibrium: When the temperature throughout a system is uniform, the system is in thermal equilibrium. Mechanical equilibrium: If at every point within a given system there is no change in pressure with time, and there is no movement of material, the system is in mechanical ...
An adiabatic wall between the two systems is 'permeable' only to energy transferred as work; at mechanical equilibrium the rates of transfer of energy as work between them are equal and opposite. If the wall is a simple wall, then the rates of transfer of volume across it are also equal and opposite; and the pressures on either side of it are ...
A state of mechanical equilibrium is stable if, when the position of the body is changed slightly, the body remains near that equilibrium. Otherwise, the equilibrium is unstable. A common visual representation of forces acting in concert is the free body diagram , which schematically portrays a body of interest and the forces applied to it by ...
Statistical equilibrium occurs if, for each state in the ensemble, the ensemble also contains all of its future and past states with probabilities equal to the probability of being in that state. (By contrast, mechanical equilibrium is a state with a balance of forces that has ceased to evolve.) The study of equilibrium ensembles of isolated ...
The static equilibrium of a mechanical system rigid bodies is defined by the condition that the virtual work of the applied forces is zero for any virtual displacement of the system. This is known as the principle of virtual work. [5] This is equivalent to the requirement that the generalized forces for any virtual displacement are zero, that ...