Stable vs Unstable
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Stable vs Unstable
Can someone explain the concept of stable and unstable in terms of the Gibbs free energy? Why does a negative free energy mean that its stable?
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Re: Stable vs Unstable
I think stability is based on the use of energy. The universe favors disorder as we've learned from entropy therefore the larger the entropy the more negative our Gibbs free energy gets. That's why if our Gibbs free energy is negative it's stable because its spontaneous meaning that the universe prefers it that way because no energy has to be inputed into it
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Re: Stable vs Unstable
One way you could interpret/imagine it is like Gibbs free energy represents the 'energy' of a system. The less energy, the more stable. So, if the change in Gibbs free energy (delta G) is negative, the system is losing energy and therefore becoming more stable (and the surroundings/universe gains that energy and is becoming more unstable ((universe tends towards disorder)) )
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