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:
“The incessant repetition of the same hand-work dwarfs the man, robs him of his strength, wit, and versatility, to make a pin- polisher, and buckle-maker, or any other specialty; and presently, in a change of industry, whole towns are sacrificed like ant-hills, when cotton takes the place of linen, or railways of turnpikes, or when commons are inclosed by landlords.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“No great movement designed to change the world can bear to be laughed at or belittled. Mockery is a rust that corrodes all it touches.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)
“No real “vital” character in fiction is altogether a conscious construction of the author. On the contrary, it may be a sort of parasitic growth upon the author’s personality, developing by internal necessity as much as by external addition.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“President Lowell of Harvard appealed to students ‘to prepare themselves for such services as the Governor may call upon them to render.’ Dean Greenough organized an ‘emergency committee,’ and Coach Fisher was reported by the press as having declared, ‘To hell with football if men are needed.’”
—For the State of Massachusetts, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“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 North American system only wants to consider the positive aspects of reality. Men and women are subjected from childhood to an inexorable process of adaptation; certain principles, contained in brief formulas are endlessly repeated by the press, the radio, the churches, and the schools, and by those kindly, sinister beings, the North American mothers and wives. A person imprisoned by these schemes is like a plant in a flowerpot too small for it: he cannot grow or mature.”
—Octavio Paz (b. 1914)