The second Gibbs paradox
- Date: Mar 30, 2026
- Time: 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
- Speaker: Daan Frenkel
- University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
- Location: Max-Planck-Institut für Festkörperforschung
- Room: 7D2
- Host: Dep. of Electronic Structure Theory
Gibbs's article "On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substance" is sometimes hard to read. As a consequence, some of his more surprising statements are not widely known. I will focus on what Gibbs wrote about the equilibrium between a small crystallite and a fluid, namely that for small crystallites, the chemical potential of the solid at the pressure and temperature inside the crystallite need not be equal to the chemical potential of the liquid with which it is in equilibrium. Surely, that cannot be true ... or can it? I will try to explain.