Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 3, 2026

Orientational Transition in a Liquid Crystal Triggered by the Thermodynamic Growth of Interfacial Wetting Sheets
Published on: May 15, 2017
Irreversible thermodynamics of multistep transitions
1Interdisciplinary Center for Nonlinear Phenomena and Complex Systems, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Campus Plaine, Code Postal 231, Boulevard du Triomphe, 1050 Brussels, Belgium.
Abstract:
Conditions under which the evolution equations of a multivariate system can be cast in a variational form are identified. A kinetic potential generating both the deterministic part of the evolution and the probabilistic properties in a suitably defined set of variables is derived and compared to the thermodynamic potentials. The results are illustrated on the kinetics of phase transitions involving intermediate metastable phases and chemical reactions giving rise to two or more intermediate species.
Related Concept Videos
Reversible and Irreversible Processes
The Entropy as a State Function
Thermodynamic Processes
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...
Entropy
Entropy Change in Reversible Processes
The statement can be further generalized to prove that entropy is a state function. Take a cyclic process between any two points on a p-V diagram.

