Surroundings

[Samantha Chung 4I]

When we talk about surroundings in chemistry, is there a "boundary" to the surroundings?

[Mona Lee 4L]

No, there is generally no limit. Essentially, the "surroundings" refer to the environment of the reaction.

[Diana Bibireata 1B]

The system is the object of interest and the surroundings is anything else, so there is no boundary to the surroundings. Essentially the system + surroundings = universe.

[Patrick Cai 1L]

Typically, the distinction between the object of interest and surroundings is the reaction vessel where the pertinent reaction is occurring and the rest of the universe. There are also cases where there are arbitrary boundaries made to distinguish the system from the rest of the universe, used more often in physics.

[Courtney Quan 1C]

The system + the surroundings make up the universe. If the system is a reaction, then everything else is the surroundings. Simply put, if something is not the system, it is a part of the surroundings.

[IsabelLight2H]

didn't he say something about how it may not affect surroundings? like pouring your water bottle into the ocean wouldn't greatly affect the ocean. What is the term for this?

[Cynthia Aragon 1B]

The system is the part of the universe that is being studied while the surroundings are the rest of the universe that interacts with the system. A system and its surroundings can be as large as the forests in South America and as small as the contents inside a beaker in a chemistry lab.

[LeannaPhan14BDis1D]

the surroundings is just a broad concept and depending on what is being talked about the "surroundings" could be infinite to the universe and yet be any small part in the universe as well.

[Nicholas Le 4H]

When referring to surroundings in chemistry, we usually mean everything outside the system that we are looking at. This means there really is not a boundary that exists for how far the surroundings can go.

[mbaker4E]

The surroundings consists of everything outside of the system.

[Charles Gu 1D]

Surroundings can be broad as the universe or limited to a container

[Aarti K Jain 1L]

Basically, you get to decide what the system is and what the surroundings are depending on what you are doing and what experiment you are running.