State Properties

[Alice Chang 2H]

What exactly is a state property? I wrote it was a value determined by its current state, but I'm not sure what that means. Does it mean like the amount of energy being carried while in that state (e.g., liquid, solid, gas, etc.)?

[Kimberly Koo 2I]

A state property is a property where its value does not depend on the path taken to get to its current state. In class Lavelle explained how the properties can be added or subtracted, since the value only depends on the first state and the last state.

[MinuChoi]

A state property is determined only by the "start" and "finish" values of a process.
Basic example: If I walk 5m forward, then walk backward 2m, I am 3m forward from my original staring point. This displacement would be the same if I simply walked 3m forward; or if I walked 500m forward, then backward 600m, then forward 103m. So displacement is a state property.

[Ritu Gaikwad 2E]

A state property can be described with something like enthalpy, which describes the ending and the starting states but there is no relevance of the process of how fast the reactant makes the product.

[Frank He 4G]

Think about it this way (using the mountain example we went over in class): the distance we traveled to get to an altitude depends on whether we took a shorter or longer route. That means it's a path function, since we'd have to factor in how long their route was and can't simply take the final and initial values to calculate it. On the other hand, the distance between your starting altitude and the altitude you want to get to doesn't change depending on how you get there, which makes it a path function. If you can't intuitively subtract the final value from the initial, like you can with altitude, then it's not a state function.