Page:Scientific Papers of Josiah Willard Gibbs.djvu/111

question formed a part of a large homogeneous body. We started, indeed, with the assumption that we might neglect the part of the energy, etc., depending upon the surfaces separating heterogeneous masses. Now, in many cases, and for many purposes, as, in general, when the masses are large, such an assumption is quite legitimate, but in the case of these masses which are formed within or among substances of different nature or state, and which at their first formation must be infinitely small, the same assumption is evidently entirely inadmissible, as the surfaces must be regarded as infinitely large in proportion to the masses. We shall see hereafter what modifications are necessary in our formulæ in order to include the parts of the energy, etc., which are due to the surfaces, but this will be on the assumption, which is usual in the theory of capillarity, that the radius of curvature of the surfaces is large in proportion to the radius of sensible molecular action, and also to the thickness of the lamina of matter at the surface which is not (sensibly) homogeneous in all respects with either of the masses which it separates. But although the formulæ thus modified will apply with sensible accuracy to masses (occurring within masses of a different nature) much smaller than if the terms relating to the surfaces were omitted, yet their failure when applied to masses infinitely small in all their dimensions is not less absolute.

Considerations like the foregoing might render doubtful the validity even of (52) as the necessary and sufficient condition of equilibrium in regard to the formation of masses not approximately homogeneous with those previously existing, when the conditions of equilibrium between the latter are satisfied, unless it is shown that in establishing this formula there have been no quantities neglected relating to the mutual action of the new and the original parts, which can affect the result. It will be easy to give such a meaning to the expressions $D\epsilon ,D\eta ,Dv,Dm_{1},Dm_{2},...Dm_{n}$ that this shall be evidently the case. It will be observed that the quantities represented by these expressions have not been perfectly defined. In the first place, we have no right to assume the existence of any surface of absolute discontinuity to divide the new parts from the original, so that the position given to the dividing surface is to a certain extent arbitrary. Even if the surface separating the masses were determined, the energy to be attributed to the masses separated would be partly arbitrary, since a part of the total energy depends upon the mutual action of the two masses. We ought perhaps to consider the case the same in regard to the entropy, although the entropy of a system never depends upon the mutual relations of parts at sensible distances from one another. Now the condition (52) will be valid if the quantities $D\epsilon ,D\eta ,Dv,Dm_{1},Dm_{2},...Dm_{n}$ are so defined that