A particularly important concept is thermodynamic equilibrium, in which there is no tendency for the state of a system to change spontaneously. For example, the gas in a cylinder with a movable piston will be at equilibrium if the temperature and pressure inside are uniform and if the restraining force on the piston is just sufficient to keep it from moving. The system can then be made to change to a new state only by an externally imposed change in one of the state functions, such as the temperature by adding heat or the volume by moving the piston. A sequence of one or more such steps connecting different states of the system is called a process. In general, a system is not in equilibrium as it adjusts to an abrupt change in its environment. For example, when a balloon bursts, the compressed gas inside is suddenly far from equilibrium, and it rapidly expands until it reaches a new equilibrium state. However, the same final state could be achieved by placing the same compressed gas in a cylinder with a movable piston and applying a sequence of many small increments in volume (and temperature), with the system being given time to come to equilibrium after each small increment. Such a process is said to be reversible because the system is at (or near) equilibrium at each step along its path, and the direction of change could be reversed at any point. This example illustrates how two different paths can connect the same initial and final states. The first is irreversible (the balloon bursts), and the second is reversible. The concept of reversible processes is something like motion without friction in mechanics. It represents an idealized limiting case that is very useful in discussing the properties of real systems. Many of the results of thermodynamics are derived from the properties of reversible processes.

Temperature

The concept of temperature is fundamental to any discussion of thermodynamics, but its precise definition is not a simple matter. For example, a steel rod feels colder than a wooden rod at room temperature simply because steel is better at conducting heat away from the skin. It is therefore necessary to have an objective way of measuring temperature. In general, when two objects are brought into thermal contact, heat will flow between them until they come into equilibrium with each other. When the flow of heat stops, they are said to be at the same temperature. The zeroth law of thermodynamics formalizes this by asserting that if an object A is in simultaneous thermal equilibrium with two other objects B and C, then B and C will be in thermal equilibrium with each other if brought into thermal contact. Object A can then play the role of a thermometer through some change in its physical properties with temperature, such as its volume or its electrical resistance.

With the definition of equality of temperature in hand, it is possible to establish a temperature scale by assigning numerical values to certain easily reproducible fixed points. For example, in the Celsius (°C) temperature scale, the freezing point of pure water is arbitrarily assigned a temperature of 0 °C and the boiling point of water the value of 100 °C (in both cases at 1 standard atmosphere; see atmospheric pressure). In the Fahrenheit (°F) temperature scale, these same two points are assigned the values 32 °F and 212 °F, respectively. There are absolute temperature scales related to the second law of thermodynamics. The absolute scale related to the Celsius scale is called the Kelvin (K) scale, and that related to the Fahrenheit scale is called the Rankine (°R) scale. These scales are related by the equations K = °C + 273.15, °R = °F + 459.67, and °R = 1.8 K. Zero in both the Kelvin and Rankine scales is at absolute zero.

Work and energy

Energy has a precise meaning in physics that does not always correspond to everyday language, and yet a precise definition is somewhat elusive. The word is derived from the Greek word ergon, meaning work, but the term work itself acquired a technical meaning with the advent of Newtonian mechanics. For example, a man pushing on a car may feel that he is doing a lot of work, but no work is actually done unless the car moves. The work done is then the product of the force applied by the man multiplied by the distance through which the car moves. If there is no friction and the surface is level, then the car, once set in motion, will continue rolling indefinitely with constant speed. The rolling car has something that a stationary car does not have—it has kinetic energy of motion equal to the work required to achieve that state of motion. The introduction of the concept of energy in this way is of great value in mechanics because, in the absence of friction, energy is never lost from the system, although it can be converted from one form to another. For example, if a coasting car comes to a hill, it will roll some distance up the hill before coming to a temporary stop. At that moment its kinetic energy of motion has been converted into its potential energy of position, which is equal to the work required to lift the car through the same vertical distance. After coming to a stop, the car will then begin rolling back down the hill until it has completely recovered its kinetic energy of motion at the bottom. In the absence of friction, such systems are said to be conservative because at any given moment the total amount of energy (kinetic plus potential) remains equal to the initial work done to set the system in motion.

As the science of physics expanded to cover an ever-wider range of phenomena, it became necessary to include additional forms of energy in order to keep the total amount of energy constant for all closed systems (or to account for changes in total energy for open systems). For example, if work is done to accelerate charged particles, then some of the resultant energy will be stored in the form of electromagnetic fields and carried away from the system as radiation. In turn the electromagnetic energy can be picked up by a remote receiver (antenna) and converted back into an equivalent amount of work. With his theory of special relativity, Albert Einstein realized that energy (E) can also be stored as mass (m) and converted back into energy, as expressed by his famous equation E = mc², where c is the velocity of light. All of these systems are said to be conservative in the sense that energy can be freely converted from one form to another without limit. Each fundamental advance of physics into new realms has involved a similar extension to the list of the different forms of energy. In addition to preserving the first law of thermodynamics (see below), also called the law of conservation of energy, each form of energy can be related back to an equivalent amount of work required to set the system into motion.

Thermodynamics encompasses all of these forms of energy, with the further addition of heat to the list of different kinds of energy. However, heat is fundamentally different from the others in that the conversion of work (or other forms of energy) into heat is not completely reversible, even in principle. In the example of the rolling car, some of the work done to set the car in motion is inevitably lost as heat due to friction, and the car eventually comes to a stop on a level surface. Even if all the generated heat were collected and stored in some fashion, it could never be converted entirely back into mechanical energy of motion. This fundamental limitation is expressed quantitatively by the second law of thermodynamics (see below).

The role of friction in degrading the energy of mechanical systems may seem simple and obvious, but the quantitative connection between heat and work, as first discovered by Count Rumford, played a key role in understanding the operation of steam engines in the 19th century and similarly for all energy-conversion processes today.

Total internal energy

Although classical thermodynamics deals exclusively with the macroscopic properties of materials—such as temperature, pressure, and volume—thermal energy from the addition of heat can be understood at the microscopic level as an increase in the kinetic energy of motion of the molecules making up a substance. For example, gas molecules have translational kinetic energy that is proportional to the temperature of the gas: the molecules can rotate about their centre of mass, and the constituent atoms can vibrate with respect to each other (like masses connected by springs). Additionally, chemical energy is stored in the bonds holding the molecules together, and weaker long-range interactions between the molecules involve yet more energy. The sum total of all these forms of energy constitutes the total internal energy of the substance in a given thermodynamic state. The total energy of a system includes its internal energy plus any other forms of energy, such as kinetic energy due to motion of the system as a whole (e.g., water flowing through a pipe) and gravitational potential energy due to its elevation.