microstate

Examples of microstate in the following topics:

• Microstates and Entropy

  • Energy can be shared between microstates of a system.
  • With more available microstates, the entropy of a system increases.
  • For a given set of macroscopic variables, the entropy measures the degree to which the probability of the system is spread out over different possible microstates.
  • With more available microstates, the entropy of a system increases.
  • The more such microstates, the greater is the probability of the system being in the corresponding macrostate.

• The Third Law of Thermodynamics and Absolute Energy

  • Entropy is related to the number of possible microstates according to $S = k_Bln(\Omega)$, where S is the entropy of the system, kB is Boltzmann's constant, and Ω is the number of microstates (e.g. possible configurations of atoms).
  • At absolute zero there is only 1 microstate possible (Ω=1) and ln(1) = 0.

• Changes in Energy

  • In a thermodynamic system, pressure, density, and temperature tend to become uniform over time because this equilibrium state has a higher probability (more possible combinations of microstates) than any other.