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Concept
Thermodynamic state
Summary
In thermodynamics, a thermodynamic state of a system is its condition at a specific time; that is, fully identified by values of a suitable set of parameters known as state variables, state parameters or thermodynamic variables. Once such a set of values of thermodynamic variables has been specified for a system, the values of all thermodynamic properties of the system are uniquely determined. Usually, by default, a thermodynamic state is taken to be one of thermodynamic equilibrium. This means that the state is not merely the condition of the system at a specific time, but that the condition is the same, unchanging, over an indefinitely long duration of time.
Thermodynamics sets up an idealized conceptual structure that can be summarized by a formal scheme of definitions and postulates. Thermodynamic states are amongst the fundamental or primitive objects or notions of the scheme, for which their existence is primary and definitive, rather than being derived or constructed from other concepts.
A thermodynamic system is not simply a physical system. Rather, in general, infinitely many different alternative physical systems comprise a given thermodynamic system, because in general a physical system has vastly many more microscopic characteristics than are mentioned in a thermodynamic description. A thermodynamic system is a macroscopic object, the microscopic details of which are not explicitly considered in its thermodynamic description. The number of state variables required to specify the thermodynamic state depends on the system, and is not always known in advance of experiment; it is usually found from experimental evidence. The number is always two or more; usually it is not more than some dozen. Though the number of state variables is fixed by experiment, there remains choice of which of them to use for a particular convenient description; a given thermodynamic system may be alternatively identified by several different choices of the set of state variables.
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