What is the difference between an extensive property and an intensive property?
The primary difference between extensive properties and intensive properties lies in how they depend on the amount of matter present in a system.
1. **Extensive Properties**:
- **Definition**: Extensive properties are those that depend on the amount of substance in a system. Their values change when the size or extent of the system changes.
- **Examples**: Common examples include mass, volume, total energy, and total enthalpy. For instance, if you have a certain amount of water, its mass and volume would increase if you added more water.
2. **Intensive Properties**:
- **Definition**: Intensive properties are those that do not depend on the amount of substance in a system. Their values remain the same regardless of how much of the substance is present.
- **Examples**: Common examples include temperature, pressure, density, and color. For instance, regardless of how much water you have, the temperature of the water does not change simply because you have more or less of it.
In summary, extensive properties scale with the amount of material, while intensive properties remain constant regardless of the amount.