ABSTRACT
References............................................................................................................. 128
This chapter introduces a general principle that is the basis for determining the
internal condition of the most complex kind of thermodynamic system when it
reaches its equilibrium state. This general criterion for equilibrium has the same
level of importance in the development of thermodynamics as do the laws
themselves, as implied in Figure 1.4. It is the foundation that provides the strategy
for the calculation equilibrium maps: phase diagrams, chemical equilibria in
predominance diagrams without and with electrical effects, the role played by
capillarity effects, the chemistry of defects in crystals, as well as the primary results
of statistical thermodynamics. These applications of this criterion occupy most of
the rest of this text.
