Page:Scientific Papers of Josiah Willard Gibbs.djvu/78

42 seen (page 37), have a common tangent plane, which is identical with the tangent plane for the point in the derived surface.

Now, if the form of the surface be such that it falls above the tangent plane except at the single point of contact, the equilibrium is necessarily stable; for if the condition of the body be slightly altered, either by imparting sensible motion to any part of the body, or by slightly changing the state of any part, or by bringing any small part into any other thermodynamic state whatever, or in all of these ways, the point representing the volume, entropy, and energy of the whole body will then occupy a position above the original tangent plane, and the proposition above enunciated shows that processes will ensue which will diminish the distance of this point from that plane, and that such processes cannot cease until the body is brought back into its original condition, when they will necessarily cease on account of the form supposed of the surface.

On the other hand, if the surface have such a form that any part of it falls below the fixed tangent plane, the equilibrium will be unstable. For it will evidently be possible by a slight change in the original condition of the body (that of equilibrium with the surrounding medium and represented by the point or points of contact) to bring the point representing the volume, entropy, and energy of the body into a position below the fixed tangent plane, in which case we see by the above preposition that processes will occur which will carry the point still farther from the plane, and that such processes cannot cease until all the body has passed into some state entirely different from its original state.

It remains to consider the case in which the surface, although it does not anywhere fall below the fixed tangent plane, nevertheless meets the plane in more than one point. The equilibrium in this case, as we might anticipate from its intermediate character between the cases already considered, is neutral. For if any part of the body be changed from its original state into that represented by another point in the thermodynamic surface lying in the same tangent plane, equilibrium will still subsist. For the supposition in regard to the form of the surface implies that uniformity in temperature and pressure still subsists, nor can the body have any necessary tendency to pass entirely into the second state or to return into the original state, for a change of the values of $$T$$ and $$P$$ les than any assignable quantity would evidently be sufficient to reverse such a tendency if any such existed, as either point at will could by such an infinitesimal variation of $$T$$ and $$P$$ be made the nearer to the plane representing $$T$$ and $$P$$.

It must be observed that in the case where the thermodynamic surface at a certain point is concave upward in both its principal