Le Chatelier's principle
Le Chatelier's principle describes the stability of a system in thermodynamic equilibrium[1][2]:
- In response to small deviations away from equilibrium, the system will change in a manner that restores equilibrium.
This translates to conditions on the second derivatives of thermodynamic potentials such as entropy, Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle S(U,\ldots)} . For instance, the entropy is a concave function of its arguments such as internal energy. Thus, one has
- Failed to parse (Conversion error. Server ("https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_") reported: "Cannot get mml. Server problem."): {\displaystyle {\frac {\partial ^{2}S}{\partial U^{2}}}\geq 0\ .}
Similarly, specific heats can be shown to be positive definite.
References
- ↑ H. L. Le Chatelier, "Sur un énoncé général des lois des équilibres chimiques", Comptes rendus 99 pp. 786-789 (1884)
- ↑ H. L. Le Chatelier, Annales des Mines 13 pp. 157- (1888)
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