Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 9, 2026

An Analog Macroscopic Technique for Studying Molecular Hydrodynamic Processes in Dense Gases and Liquids
Published on: December 4, 2017
Morphological thermodynamics of fluids: shape dependence of free energies
1Max-Planck-Institut für Metallforschung, Heisenbergstrasse 3, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany.
Abstract:
We examine the dependence of a thermodynamic potential of a fluid on the geometry of its container. If motion invariance, continuity, and additivity of the potential are satisfied, only four morphometric measures are needed to describe fully the influence of an arbitrarily shaped container on the fluid. These three constraints can be understood as a more precise definition for the conventional term extensive and have as a consequence that the surface tension and other thermodynamic quantities contain, aside from a constant term, only contributions linear in the mean and Gaussian curvature of the container and not an infinite number of curvatures as generally assumed before. We verify this numerically in the entropic system of hard spheres bounded by a curved wall.
Related Concept Videos
Heating and Cooling Curves
For instance, the addition of heat raises the temperature of a solid; the amount of heat absorbed depends on the heat capacity of the solid (q = mcsolidΔT). According to thermochemistry, the relation between the amount of heat absorbed or released by a substance, q, and its...
Entropy
Entropy
When an ideal gas expands isothermally, the disorder in the gas increases. From the molecular perspective, the gas molecules have more volume to move around in.
Consider an infinitesimal step in the expansion, which...
Characteristics of Fluids
Entropy Changes Accompanying Specific Processes
Characteristics of Fluids
Fluids, which include both liquids and gases, are substances that deform continuously under shearing stress. For example, water and oil are liquids with molecules that can...

