ABSTRACT
The free energy of the glass is higher than that of the equilibrium solid or crystal, and it is at a nonequilibrium state. When liquid is cooled continuously and develops resistance to shear and hardens into the solid state without any signature of a first order transition, glass is formed. In this chapter, the authors generalize their discussion beyond the liquid-solid transition to all first order transitions, specifically to magnetic transitions where the potential energy landscape may have no obvious significance. Most studies of first order magnetic transitions are on materials with possible functionalities. These possibilities are enhanced in multicomponent materials with enhancing substitutions, where disorder is inherent to such materials. The authors stress that measurements under isothermal variations in a magnetic field, commonly referred to as hysteresis measurements, are the most common measurements that magnetic materials are subjected to.
