Glassy dynamics near zero temperature

The physical form of a substance changes on changing its temperature. For example, raising the temperature of a liquid causes the liquid to vaporize (convert into vapor). The process is called vaporization—a surface phenomenon. Vaporization occurs when the thermal motion of the molecules overcome the intermolecular forces, and the molecules (at the surface) escape into the gaseous state. When a liquid vaporizes in a closed container, gas molecules cannot escape. As these gas phase molecules...

Heating a crystalline solid increases the average energy of its atoms, molecules, or ions, and the solid gets hotter. At some point, the added energy becomes large enough to partially overcome the forces holding the molecules or ions of the solid in their fixed positions, and the solid begins the process of transitioning to the liquid state or melting. At this point, the temperature of the solid stops rising, despite the continual input of heat, and it remains constant until all of the solid is...

A pure, perfectly crystalline solid possessing no kinetic energy (that is, at a temperature of absolute zero, 0 K) may be described by a single microstate, as its purity, perfect crystallinity,and complete lack of motion means there is but one possible location for each identical atom or molecule comprising the crystal (W = 1). According to the Boltzmann equation, the entropy of this system is zero.

Experimentally, if object A is in equilibrium with object B, and object B is in equilibrium with object C, then object A is in equilibrium with object C. That statement of transitivity is called the "zeroth law of thermodynamics." For example, a cold metal block and a hot metal block are both placed on a metal plate at room temperature. Eventually, the cold block and the plate will be in thermal equilibrium. In addition, the hot block and the plate will be in thermal equilibrium. By the zeroth...

A mole is defined as the amount of any substance that contains as many molecules as there are atoms in exactly 12 grams of carbon-12. An Italian scientist Amedeo Avogadro (1776–1856) formed the  hypothesis that equal volumes of gas at equal pressure and temperature contain equal numbers of molecules, independent of the type of gas. Later, the hypothesis was developed to form the SI unit for measuring the amount of any substance.
The number of molecules in one mole is called Avogadro's number...

Systems in mechanical equilibrium exert equal pressure on the separating wall. Similarly, systems in thermal equilibrium share a common thermodynamic property: temperature.Temperature is a measure of the average kinetic energy of particles within a system. More generally, it reflects the internal energy state of the system. The higher the temperature, the more energy a system has, given that other variables, such as volume and pressure, remain constant. However, temperature is not a form of...