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I noticed the phase transition is described with latent heat (under Modern classification) and as in which derivative a discontinuity is found. In my opinion, first or higher order phase transitions are most easily understood mathematically by looking at it from a Landau theory point of view. One could describe the phase transition as such, that in a first order phase transition the stable state is the disordered one (order parameter = 0) at high temperature. As the temperature decreases, a metastable is formed which corresponds to an ordered state. As temperature decreases more, the ordered state order parameter can increase even further. At the critical temperature, the free energy of the metastable ordered state is equal to that of the disordered state, after which the ordered state becomes the stable state if temperature decreases further. At the critical temperature, a discontinuous jump in order parameter (of which the physical interpretation is the phase) occurs. For a continuous (second order or higher) phase transition, the ordered state also is stable from a certain temperature downwards, but this state will grow more ordered from the disordered state as temperature is decreased. So instead of a jump, the order parameter of a stable state continuously grows from zero.
Perhaps a connection to Landau theory in this section is wise as well. And a graph of the order parameter versus the temperature, where the metastable state can be drawn in a dotted line for the first order phase transition.
Hopefully I explained it well enough for you to understand what i want to add. Please consider that this is my first addition to wikipedia, meaning feedback is very much welcome but let it be constructive. LotteUU (talk) 11:26, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
From the sentence "A phase of a thermodynamic system and the states of matter have uniform physical properties, because of their different mass." I don't understand the part "because of their different mass", and I'm pretty sure it's wrong. I would just remove it, but I wanted to see if anyone objects. Muaddib131 (talk) 16:34, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Is there no literature on whether the temperature of a phase change for a particular element or compound can be predicted from current physics (i.e. quantuum mechanics)?
Does current physics explain why mercury is a liquid in its "normal" state but Oxygen is a gas in its "normal" state?
Should the success or failure of physics to be able to predict such a thing be part of this article? 69.250.30.203 (talk) 18:04, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
From the article: "This means, for example, that it is impossible for the solid-liquid phase boundary to end in a critical point like the liquid-gas boundary. However, symmetry-breaking transitions can still be either first or second order."
From the article:
This isn't my area of expertise, but I'm pretty sure this is wrong. The direction of the magnetic field always reverses under time reversal, but that's because of the way the field is represented mathematically; it isn't a T violation. -- BenRG 05:51, 24 Sep 2003 (UTC)
What I meant is just that the magnetic field is an axial vector field. I agree that symmetry breaking takes place in the ferromagnetic transition, but it's not time reversal symmetry that's broken. Time reversal symmetry is only broken by the second law of thermodynamics and (in a different sense) by weak interactions. The formation of ferromagnetic domains resembles crystallization and has the same symmetry-breaking properties (i.e. it breaks isotropy).
I've never heard time-reversal symmetry mentioned in the context of thermodynamic phase transitions, but if you can find a textbook that disagrees with me I'll reconsider my position. -- BenRG 08:48, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Goldenfeld answered my objection in his very first sentence when he wrote: "The first symmetry which we discuss is up-down symmetry, sometimes called time-reversal symmetry or Z2 symmetry." In other words, it's really about reversing the magnetic field, and time reversal is just one (theoretical) way to describe that. I interpreted "time reversal" to mean reversing the evolution of a dynamic system, and in that sense it's a little weird to say that any static system (like a ferromagnet in thermal equilibrium) violates time reversal symmetry.
I propose that the paragraph be changed to something like this:
I'm not sure that I phrased it too well, but the three main changes are: 1. Makes the symmetry, rather than the phase transition, the topic of the paragraph (otherwise it's unclear why the paragraph doesn't mention that the ferromagnetic transition also breaks isotropy); 2. Removes the link to the T-symmetry article, which is about a different symmetry entirely; 3. Clarifies that time reversal is just one way of looking at the symmetry in question. Is this acceptable?
By the way, I agree that what I wrote above beginning "Time reversal symmetry is only broken by..." is nonsense. What I was trying to articulate is that physicists don't normally talk about time-asymmetry in actual physical systems because it's ubiquitous. To say that a physical law violates time-reversal symmetry is to say something interesting and meaningful because there are so few that do; but to say that a particular system violates it is to say very little. I agree, though, that it does make sense to talk about it in this context. Sorry. -- BenRG
--- Shouldn't the various terms for the various phase transitions be noted and defined or at least linked-to in this article? ie. condensation, melting, boiling, sublimation etc?? I was trying to find the term for solid -> gas transition (sublimation) and had to resort to google because the obvious place for it to me (this article) had no mention of the term...
--- The wikipedia term order parameter gets redirected to this page. Perhaps another page should be created for it? The order parameter is a relatively new concept that can be a rich source of future work. For instance, in systems with quenched disorder, such as a glass, below T_c, the system is split into multiple ergodically-separated phase regions. A single-valued order parameter would be meaningless in this case. In replica techniques, the order parameter of this glass would be described by an N x N matrix where N is the number of replicas. (Also, , but that's another story.) Wilgamesh 22:51, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
clusters of atoms and molecules or small proteins. Many articles devoted to the subject discuss usefulness of concepts like 'phase'/'phase change' in systems that are so small that thermodynamics equilibrium (N-> \infty) is far away. In fact the notion in the textbooks (N-> \infty) should be considered as a mathematical limit rather than a meaningful physical limit. Because cluster physics is more and more developed, I'd suggest to keep both: 'phase change' for strictly small systems, and 'phase transition' for bulk.See for example 'Theory of Atomic and molecular clsters' (J.Jellinek,ed.) Springer 1999[User:AIP] October, 22, 2005
I have been told that phase transitions=physical equilibria. How can phase transitions be physical equilibria? For example, if you have liquid water going into gas phase, doesn't delta G have to be greater than 0? Is physical equilibria an assumption in phase transitions? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.220.159.5 (talk) 00:33, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
It would be nice to include sample (possibly schematic) phase diagrams for a few typical systems, e.g. water (P vs. T), a ferromagnet (H vs. T), and superconductivity (H vs. T). The same diagrams should be included on the respective pages, and perhaps discussed in more detail there. Steven G. Johnson 21:28, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)
The article represents third and higher order phase transitions as a theoretical possibility. Have they actually been observed in practice? --137.111.13.34 22:47, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
It may have been. It seems that the signature of a higher order phase transition is sometimes easy to overlook. There is some indication (Physical Review Letters, 1999) that the appearance of superconductivity in BaKBiO3 is a fourth order phase transition.
Most people probably think of the liquid/gas system as having a first order phase transition. I think a couple of extra sentences could help explain what is continuous in this system. Ie the change in density across the phase coexistance line as a function of (T-Tc). Although I'm not confident enough that I won't make it worse to clarify this myself.
It is not first-order past the critical point. Itamblyn (talk) 13:58, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
Ehrenfest's classification of Phase Transitions does not have anything to do with mean field theory (or any other approximation method), contrary to what the author says. It's based on analytic properties of the EXACT free energy.
Why were the references and some of the interwiki links removed? I'm restoring them, but if there is a good reason to remove them, let me know. Salsb 17:56, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
The table of "names" for phase transitions -- "boiling = liquid -> gas", "freezing = liquid -> solid", etc -- is not meaningful. As the article explains, solids/liquids/gases are only three examples for phases. It is generally not scientific practice to give names to the transitions, only the phases. The terms "boiling", "freezing" etc. are colloquial terms, so it is sufficient to mention them in the introductory text (as is already done in the article). It's not necessary to insert an important-looking table that in fact has no scientific merit. -- CYD
The article on phase change should be merged into this one since it addresses a small subset of phase transitions — those between solid, liquid and gas. Those issues can be perfectly well discussed in the introductory material to the present article.
The section of phase change on the technology behind DVD and CD writers should be given its own article, and phase change should simply become a redirect to phase transition.
Once this is done, I propose that Category:Phase changes be renamed to Category:Phase transition.
Thoughts? — WebDrake 00:43, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
Can anyone explain why phase changes tend to be abrupt with respect to temperature? For example, some materials exhibit creep in the "solid" state, but even so, most materials have a defined melting temperature rather than having a yield stress that slowly approaches zero as Tm is reached. Since abrupt phase transitions are the norm, there must be a general explanation. Why? —BenFrantzDale 21:20, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
i have no idea what to do and my teacher made me do an assignment
The following paragraph appears:
"The presence of symmetry-breaking (or nonbreaking) is important to the behavior of phase transitions. It was pointed out by Landau that, given any state of a system, one may unequivocally say whether or not it possesses a given symmetry. Therefore, it cannot be possible to analytically deform a state in one phase into a phase possessing a different symmetry. This means, for example, that it is impossible for the solid-liquid phase boundary to end in a critical point like the liquid-gas boundary. However, symmetry-breaking transitions can still be either first- or second-order."
I can't make sense of it. While this could certainly be my mistake, I think it could be made clearer. Could someone look it over and make sure the wording is as clear as possible? Thanks. 207.157.43.71 14:06, 18 July 2006 (UTC). Adding my real sig: PitOfBabel 14:07, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
I've got a question. In the article, there is "... including the solid/liquid/gas transitions and Bose-Einstein condensation." - for first-order phase transition.
But in the paragraph named Critical points, there is "..at which the transition between liquid and gas becomes a second-order transition".
Is there something I didn't catch or it's typing error?
Hello physicists, I was trying to learn about order parameters, which i get the vague notion sort of describe something about how something changes during a phase transition. great!! but -- the page for Order Parameters redirects to this page, and this page says "... order parameters, which we will describe later ..." lies! there are no later descriptions! silly physicists... now i still don't understand order parameters.
Hi, does this sentence even has a meaning? "An order parameter is a measure of the degree of order across the boundaries in a phase transition system." What is order and what does order across a boundary mean? The boundary of what even? This is a tautologous definition, only those understand who already knew what it is.Rochard (talk) 03:55, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
The article lists the change from liquid to gas as boiling/evaporation. Surely evaporation is the change from liquid to vapour, not gas. That's why it is called eVAPORation. 86.133.202.12 20:53, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Could anyone explain in more detail the difference between the two classification systems? I assume they are equivalent in most cases, is this true? Is the Ehrenfest system actually disused? This system was taught to me in a recent lecture, albeit by a rather hopeless lecturer... He also kept going on about Lambda Transitions, which do not seem to be as important as the impression he gave, as they are not mentioned in this article (please ignore me if I have had a bout of stupidity and / or blindness and missed it).Bistromathic 15:32, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
The first diagram showing the phase changes indicates that "Sublimination" is a phase change. The term is in fact--as the table later shows--"sublimation." "Sublimination" isn't related to physics--it might be a paranormal term but it's definitely wrong here.66.174.92.168 04:06, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
The phase diagram shown in the article has a small error, but I am no good at editing images so I was hoping I could raise the awareness and someone might fix it up. The dotted line showing the phase transition from solid to liquid for water is drawn in as a very curvy line. In every phase diagram of water I have ever seen it looks more like a straight line with more of an obviouse 'negative' slope. The line stays straight at least until 200+ atmospheres of pressure. Also, where the dotted line first branches out from the solid line at first it appears to have a slightly positive slope, and this is definately incorrect...Thanks, and comments much appreciated. CoolMike 00:51, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
This article seems to deal primarily with discontinous/first order phase transitions. E.g. "The order parameter is the quantity which is indeterminate at the critical point" this is true for a discontinous phase transition but not for a continous/second order phase transition. /Lokal_Profil 12:43, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
The article says: "The second class of phase transitions are the continuous phase transitions, also called second-order phase transitions." Two paragraphs later: "Several transitions are known as the infinite-order phase transitions". Can I from this deduce that infinite order phase transitions are second order phase transitions?
I think that this needs clarification.
TomyDuby (talk) 03:23, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
Phase transitions of order n, where n > 1, are continuous. They are discontinuous when n=1. Itamblyn (talk) 14:03, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
I made an edit earlier that was promptly reversed by adding /Fusion next to Melting in the phase change table. I believe these terms are synonymous and it should be reflected in the article.
Reference: Chang, R., Chemistry, 7th Ed, McGraw-Hill (2002)
I've also seen this my physics and physical chemistry text books as well as online dictionaries.
Jaa6c6 (talk) 22:47, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
This is a minor but common point: phase transition or phase-transition; phase change or phase-change ? I see that both forms are used in the article at the moment; maybe one should fix one form according to the style of wikipedia. --PMajer (talk) 12:39, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
In the table of transitions plasma is reached only from gas/fluid. But this is not so obvious from the P-T diagram - there it seems that if P is high enough maybe solid-to-plasma transition can occur.[1] It is not very clear, because plasma is not shown on the P-T diagram. So, we should eighter mention solid-to-plasma or change the P-T diagram so that it shows a negative slope on the solid/liquid line after some point so that there is no solid-to-plasma. In eighter case the plasma phase should be added to the P-T diagram. Alinor (talk) 17:49, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
Dear Friends,
I found a line saying one of the earlier attempts to formulate a scientific law of phase transitions was by Engels. I thought it was irrelevant and deleted it promptly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pteradactyle (talk • contribs) 22:50, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
about Mistake - is liquid/gas first or second order?
The article says the liquid/gas transition is first order, but then later says it has the same critical exponents as the uniaxial (a term which is not explained) ferromagnet, which is second order. The comment "Mistake" above makes a related point. Paulhummerman (talk) 10:59, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
Hello, I'm not well versed on the propper form of Wikipedia editing so if I'm doing something wrong I apologize in advance.
What I wanted to discuss is that this article on phase transitions isn't general enough to describe what phase transitions actually are. It states in the opening statement that "A phase transition is the transformation of a thermodynamic system from one phase or state of matter to another." and this is merely one of the many kinds of phase transitions there are. A phase transition is the physical process through which a system (thermodynamical, classical, quantum...) undergoes a discontinuous behavioral shift. Condensed Matter physics is ripe with examples of this: not only the thermodynamical "matter phase transitions" but Bose-Einstein condensation (fluid-superfluid transition) or Superconductivity which can actually be seen as a change in the nature of matter (from fermionic to bosonic!) and other fields of Physics deal with phase transitions. As another example, the Higgs mechanism implies a phase transition on the Standard Model, and most inflationary processes in Cosmology are models that create a phase transition in the early Universe.
It is my belief that presenting phase transitions as a purely thermodynamical mechanism is misleading and detracts from their position as one of the most important mechanisms to understanding the natural world. The Wikipedia article on Landau Theory is a great place to start for those whose interest is picked. My suggestion is that a tag is added to the article saying it needs to be generalized so it will hopefully garner the attention of an expert (the current incarnation of the article could be the "Thermodynamical Phase Transitions" Section). I might even help out if needed (the field is so incredibly vast that rewriting this article in those lines is a very, very daunting task).
And in case you're wondering, no, I'm not a phase transition academic that wants to see my field of work get more recognition :) I'm just a Physics grad student that has been marvelled by the subject ^^
Capelo (talk) 17:49, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
P.S.: My apologies to whoever editted above me as I accidentaly added this comment to his topic despite them being absolutely decorrelated. I edited it out again and started this new topic, I hope I didn't do anything wrong :/
The article (or someone here) should answer these questions: In the modern classification scheme, are there solid rules for defining the transition categories, or is it more like a loose collection of similar phenomena (like classification in biology)? Is there an easy way to define infinite-order phase transitions other than saying "They are continuous but break no symmetries."? (And do the other continuous transitions always break symmetries?) Also, if the second-order transitions are characterized by divergences, do infinite-order transitions lack such divergences? --Zeroparallax (talk) 06:02, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
I presume you referring to infinite-order PHASE transitions. Well the free energy has an essential singularity and any order derivative of the free energy does not diverge.
Right now we just have a gas/liquid/solid phase phase diagram in pressure temperature. Since plasma seems to be singled out as "the fourth phase", it would be nice to also add on the plasma phase to the P-T diagram, although I'm not sure what the generic form of this is. For example, I suppose that upon heating a molecular substance it first decomposes into a polyatomic gas, and then finally begins to ionize. To avoid that extra intermediate phase we could consider a more simple specie, perhaps cesium.
It sounds like some such experiments have been done with cesium. This paper offers some insights however the diagram is not quite what we want (pressure-volume or axes instead of pressure-temperature). A few key things we can note:
There is also this diagram (similar axes) which says that many of the very high temperature phase transitions are only continuous transitions... --Nanite (talk) 07:44, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
Stars are plasma, gas giants are gas, rocky planets have liquids/solids. The relevance of phase transitions in cosmology is in the stars/planets themselves. The symmetry breaking stuff sounds like a mathematician went crazy. Wavyinfinity (talk) 12:26, 11 November 2014 (UTC)
How is this even logically possible? - needs to be rewritten. "A spinodal decomposition, in which a single phase is cooled and separates into two different compositions of that same phase."Wikibearwithme (talk) 21:54, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
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This was removed because it "appeared to be spam". It is not spam. The publications have a following of significant physicists and economists, and have been published in reputable physics and economics journals. Do not confuse the "newness" of the field of econophysics with the posting of spam. The readers can verify that the main author is being followed by the very notable economist Alan Kirman (formerly of Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton, and also IHES). The main author was also "facebook friended" by nobel laureate in economics Edmund Phelps, whose work on partial information theory partially inspired the ideas of bounded rationality in the work. UPSHOT: please do your homework and read the article on Econophysics before altering this new section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:301:772A:E580:E477:F887:DFC2:9504 (talk) 07:56, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
The first paper was published in a journal for undergraduates and is not overly technical, and has been cited. The other papers have also been cited. Please read the papers and check the links before making untrue statements. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 23.114.174.88 (talk) 14:51, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
This work goes back to 2005, (see currently cited paper on researchgate, which has been cited many times). The purpose of Wikipedia is to disseminate knowledge, even if the advances are recent. An expert, Alan Kirman, edits and references wikipedia to students and authors, and he requested proof for these statements of recent advances. Hence the newer papers were cited to satisfy a "publication needed" requirement. If you are not an expert, please do your homework to understand the content of the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:301:772A:E580:9184:6E6F:3252:F8EA (talk) 18:14, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
There is no conflict of interest here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:301:772A:E580:9184:6E6F:3252:F8EA (talk) 18:28, 16 December 2017 (UTC) User who is taking down "phase transition in economics" has had issues with wikipedia administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Attic_Salt#Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Repeated_closure_of_RfC_by_involved_editor_.2B_alteration_of_others.27_talk_page_comments — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:301:772A:E580:9184:6E6F:3252:F8EA (talk) 19:00, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
Type 1 has always first order phase transition, whereas type 2 has a second order phase transition only at zero magnetic field. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2607:EA00:107:3407:58D0:E9F4:D3AF:3F18 (talk) 06:10, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
The current version of this article defines a first order phase transition by the presence of latent heat according to the Landau classification (this has been included for a long time, since the 2003 version, see diff). I don't believe that this is universally accepted, as the Bose-Einstein Condensation of an ideal Bose gas has a latent heat given by
where all symbols have their usual meanings. Huang uses this to justify calling BEC a first order phase transition in the old Ehrenfest classification. However, BEC is considered a second order phase transition (Pitaevski and Stringari) via the spontaneous breaking of gauge symmetry in the Ginzburg-landau sense (this works for both free fields and phi-4 theory).
Therefore, perhaps it would be prudent to remove any mention of latent heat from the Landau Classification, and move it to the Enrenfest classification. If this issue has already been raised and resolved, then can somebody please point me to the relevant discussion, as I cannot find it. 43.252.249.11 (talk) 15:29, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
I started off a brief section on dynamical modelling of social systems, with an example in one specific domain. Obviously, the dynamical modelling of social systems is a lot more speculative than for chemical or simple physical systems due to the huge number of dimensions, difficulty in measurement, and near-impossibility of controlled experiments (depending on the particular social system under study). Moreover, overconfidence in jargon, lack of mathematical understanding and experience in numerical modelling and general postmodernism may lead to peer-reviewed papers on dynamical modelling of social systems that are, to say it politely, not as rigorous as they should be.
All the same, the literature exists and the basic hypothesis of social systems being dynamical systems seems difficult to dispute.
Putting these two elements together, I think that sooner or later, once there's enough material, the section on dynamical modelling of social systems should be WP:SPLIT off to its own article, leaving an ((excerpt)) of the lead here. Boud (talk) 09:30, 24 June 2024 (UTC)