Change of Internal State of An Isolated System
If an isolated system is left long enough, it will reach a state of thermal equilibrium, in which its temperature will be uniform throughout, but not necessarily a state of thermodynamic equilibrium, if there is some structural barrier that can prevent some possible processes in the system from reaching equilibrium. An isolated system can change its temperature or its spatial distribution of temperature by changing the state of Longley, R.G. Van Name, Longmans, Green & Co., New York, 1928, volume 1, pages 55-353, particularly pages 144-150. A system prepared as a mixture of petrol vapour and air can be ignited by a spark and produce carbon dioxide and water; if this happens in an isolated system, it will increase the temperature of the system, and during the increase, the system is not in thermal equilibrium; but eventually the system will settle to a uniform temperature. In a system prepared as a block of ice floating in a bath of hot water, and then isolated, the ice can melt; during the melting, the system is not in thermal equilibrium; but eventually its temperature will become uniform. Such changes in isolated systems are irreversible in the sense that while such a change will occur spontanteously whenever the system is prepared in the same way, the reverse change will never occur spontanteously within the isolated system; this is a large part of the content of the second law of thermodynamics. Truly isolated systems hardly occur in nature, and nearly always are artificially prepared.
Read more about this topic: Thermal Equilibrium
Famous quotes containing the words change of, change, internal, state, isolated and/or system:
“This is the end, the redemption from Wilderness, way for the Wonderer, House sought for All, black handkerchief washed clean by weeping—page beyond Psalm—Last change of mine and Naomi—to God’s perfect Darkness— Death, stay thy phantoms!”
—Allen Ginsberg (b. 1926)
“To the sick the doctors wisely recommend a change of air and scenery.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“If the Revolution has the right to destroy bridges and art monuments whenever necessary, it will stop still less from laying its hand on any tendency in art which, no matter how great its achievement in form, threatens to disintegrate the revolutionary environment or to arouse the internal forces of the Revolution, that is, the proletariat, the peasantry and the intelligentsia, to a hostile opposition to one another. Our standard is, clearly, political, imperative and intolerant.”
—Leon Trotsky (1879–1940)
“I ask especially that no state shall, by law or otherwise, authorize the return of the saloon, either in its old form or in some modern guise.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“There is a city myth that country life was isolated and lonely; the truth is that farmers and their families then had a richer social life than they have now. They enjoyed a society organic, satisfying and whole, not mixed and thinned with the life of town, city and nation as it now is.”
—Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1965)
“The genius of any slave system is found in the dynamics which isolate slaves from each other, obscure the reality of a common condition, and make united rebellion against the oppressor inconceivable.”
—Andrea Dworkin (b. 1946)