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The Principles of Thermodynamics
book

The Principles of Thermodynamics

by N.D. Hari Dass
October 2013
Intermediate to advanced content levelIntermediate to advanced
352 pages
13h 56m
English
CRC Press
Content preview from The Principles of Thermodynamics
7
Thermodynamic Potentials and
Maxwell Relations
7.1 Thermodynamic potentials
The notion of a potential plays a very important role in mechanics. Even without
solving dynamical equations like for example the Newton’s laws (which necessarily
bring in the notion of time), a knowledge of even the gross features of a potential,
like its maxima or minima (also called the stationary points), tells us about special
congurations called the stable(unstable) points. The signicance of the stable con-
gurations, given by the location of the minima of the potential, is that if the system
when isolated happens to be in one such conguration, it will continue in ...
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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781466512085