Phase transition
hideA phase transition is a natural physical process. It has the characteristic of taking a given medium with given properties and transforming some or all of that medium, into a new medium with new properties. Phase transitions occur frequently and are found everywhere in the natural world. Some engineering techniques exploit certain types of phase transition.
In thermodynamics, a phase transition is the transformation of a thermodynamic system from one phase to another.
At a phase transition point, physical properties may undergo abrupt change: for instance, the volume of the two phases may be vastly different as is illustrated by the boiling of liquid water to form steam.
The term is most commonly used to describe transitions between solid, liquid and gaseous states of matter, in rare cases including plasma.
For more information about Phase transition, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
News tagged with phase transitions
Magnetism observed in gas for the first time
Sep 17, 2009 |
4.5 / 5 (14) |
0
(PhysOrg.com) -- For the first time, MIT scientists have observed ferromagnetism in an atomic gas, addressing the decades-old question of whether gases could show properties similar to a magnet made of iron or nickel. Specifically, ...
'Wedding Cake' Images Display Transitions between Exotic Quantum States
Aug 20, 2009 |
4.8 / 5 (4) |
4
(PhysOrg.com) -- Transitions are exciting. And at temperatures close to absolute zero, studying the transition from one quantum phase to another tantalizes physicists looking for a deeper understanding of ...
Scientists Observe Liquid Water Below Freezing
Jun 24, 2009 |
4.2 / 5 (14) |
8
(PhysOrg.com) -- Below 0 °C, water turns to ice. But beyond that, or below about -75 °C, the ice may turn back into liquid water. While scientists have previously predicted this phase transition with computer ...
Back to basics: Scientists discover a fundamental mechanism for cell organization (w/Video)
May 21, 2009 |
4.8 / 5 (6) |
0
Scientists have discovered that cells use a very simple phase transition -- similar to water vapor condensing into dew -- to assemble and localize subcellular structures that are involved in formation of the embryo.
The day the universe froze: New dark energy model includes cosmological phase transition
May 08, 2009 |
3.9 / 5 (23) |
16
Imagine a time when the entire universe froze. According to a new model for dark energy, that is essentially what happened about 11.5 billion years ago, when the universe was a quarter of the size it is today.
Exerting better control over matter waves
Mar 27, 2009 |
4.6 / 5 (29) |
15
(PhysOrg.com) -- “The concept of matter waves is at the heart of quantum mechanics,” Oliver Morsch tells PhysOrg.com. “At the beginning of the last century, scientists discovered that solid particles could exhibit proper ...
Magnetism Governs Properties of Iron-Based Superconductors
Mar 18, 2009 |
3.5 / 5 (6) |
0
(PhysOrg.com) -- Though a year has passed since the discovery of a new family of high-temperature superconductors, a viable explanation for the iron-based materials’ unusual talent remains elusive. But a team ...
Scientists confirms liquid-liquid phase transition in silicon
Mar 16, 2009 |
4.6 / 5 (5) |
0
Using rigorous computer calculations, researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and the Carnegie Institution of Washington have established evidence that supercooled silicon experiences a liquid-liquid phase transition, ...
Forget the freezer: Research suggests novel way to control water behavior
Feb 20, 2009 |
3.4 / 5 (7) |
4
Researchers may be able to "freeze" water into a solid, not by cooling but by confining it to narrow spaces less than one-millionth of a millimeter wide, according to new results from an interdisciplinary team of scientists ...
Scientists discover quantum mechanical 'hurricanes' form spontaneously
Oct 15, 2008 |
5 / 5 (27) |
9
University of Arizona scientists experimenting with some of the coldest gases in the universe have discovered that when atoms in the gas get cold enough, they can spontaneously spin up into what might be described ...
Entanglement without Classical Correlations
Aug 27, 2008 |
4.1 / 5 (60) |
21
Quantum mechanics is full of counterintuitive concepts. The idea of entanglement – when two or more particles instantaneously exhibit dependent characteristics when measured, no matter how far apart they are – is one of them. ...
