Abstract
Some processes happen spontaneously. What, at a macroscopic level, appears as a nature’s tendency, is an effect of the complex statistical behaviour of the microscopic particles: their overall net effect emerges at the macroscopic level as a spontaneous force that determines if and how a system can spontaneously change, and if and toward which direction a process is therefore started.
Keywords: Canonical ensemble, Canonical partition function, Crossproduct, Momentum partition function, Phase space, Positional partition function, System configuration, Tendency.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter as:
Alberto Gianinetti ;From Nature’s Tendency To Statistical Mechanics, An Account of Thermodynamic Entropy (2017) 1: 56. https://doi.org/10.2174/9781681083933117010010
DOI https://doi.org/10.2174/9781681083933117010010 |
Publisher Name Bentham Science Publisher |