Thermodynamic potential

Scalar physical quantities representing system states

A thermodynamic potential (or more accurately, a thermodynamic potential energy) is a scalar quantity used to represent the thermodynamic state of a system. Similarly to the potential energy of the conservative gravitational field, defined as capacity to do work, various thermodynamic potentials have similar meanings. The author of the term of thermodynamic potentials is Pierre Duhem in an 1886 work.

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