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¹ Source: wiktionary.com

Medical Definition of Thermodynamic equilibrium

1. There is a very general result from statistical mechanics which states that, if a system is in thermodynamic equilibrium with another (or several other) system, all processes by which the systems can exchange energy must be exactly balanced by their reverse processes, so that there is no net exchange of energy. For plasma systems in thermodynamic equilibrium, ionisation must be balanced by recombination, Bremsstrahlung by absorption, and so on. When thermodynamic equilibrium exists, the distribution function of particle energies and excited energy levels of the atoms can be obtained from the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution (which is a function only of the temperature). The Saha equation is a special application of this. (09 Oct 1997)

Lexicographical Neighbors of Thermodynamic Equilibrium

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