Monday, 2 March 2015

What's the point with equilibrium in Thermodynamics?


All the Thermodynamics books I saw until now state that in Thermodynamics we are mainly concearned with equilibrium states (I know there's "non-equilibrium Thermodynamics", but I'm interested on the standard viewpoint). Now, why is that? Books try to explain this in terms of the implications in measurements, but I don't feel comfortable with experimental Physics, so that I just get more confusing with this kind of argument.


Why do we need to consider states of equilibrium? And also, what really is that equilibrium? I think it's different from the Classical Mechanics notion of equilibrium where we demand the net force to be zero at a equilibrium state. Equilibrium in Thermodynamics has any relationship with this notion of equilibrium in mechanics?




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