microstate

(noun)

The specific detailed microscopic configuration of a system.

Related Terms

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.

  • Stastical Interpretation of Entropy

    • The following table shows all possibilities along with numbers of possible configurations (or microstate; a detailed description of every element of a system).
    • Note that all of these conclusions are based on the crucial assumption that each microstate is equally probable.
    • There is only 1 way (1 microstate) to get the most orderly arrangement of 100 heads.
    • There are very few ways to accomplish this (very few microstates corresponding to it), and so it is exceedingly unlikely ever to occur.

  • The Third Law

    • Entropy is related to the number of possible microstates, and with only one microstate available at zero kelvin the entropy is exactly zero.
    • where kB is the Bolzmann constant and W is the number of microstates.

  • 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.

  • Common Bases of Logarithms

    • The entropy (S) of a system can be calculated from the natural logarithm of the number of possible microstates (W) the system can adopt: