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A physical system is a collection of
A physical system is a collection of physical object
In common usage and classical mechanics, a physical object or physical body (or simply an object or body) is a collection of matter within a defined contiguous boundary in three-dimensional space. The boundary must be defined and identified by t ...
s.
In physics, it is a portion of the physical universe chosen for analysis. Everything outside the system is known as the environment
Environment most often refers to:
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* Natural environment, all living and non-living things occurring naturally
* Biophysical environment, the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism or ...
. The environment is ignored except for its effects on the system.
The split between system and environment is the analyst's choice, generally made to simplify the analysis. For example, the water in a lake, the water in half of a lake, or an individual molecule of water in the lake can each be considered a physical system. A Thermostat
A thermostat is a regulating device component which senses the temperature of a physical system and performs actions so that the system's temperature is maintained near a desired setpoint.
Thermostats are used in any device or system tha ...
is one that has negligible interaction with its environment. Often a system in this sense is chosen to correspond to the more usual meaning of heat such as a particular machine.
In the study of temperature , the "system" may refer to the microscopic properties of an object (e.g. the mean of a pendulum
A pendulum is a weight suspended from a wikt:pivot, pivot so that it can swing freely. When a pendulum is displaced sideways from its resting, Mechanical equilibrium, equilibrium position, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity that ...
bob), while the relevant "environment" may be the internal degrees of freedom
Degrees of freedom (often abbreviated df or DOF) refers to the number of independent variables or parameters of a thermodynamic system. In various scientific fields, the word "freedom" is used to describe the limits to which physical movement or ...
, described classically by the pendulum's thermavibration
See also
*Conceptual systems A conceptual system is a system that is composed of non- physical objects, i.e. ideas or concepts. In this context a system is taken to mean "an interrelated, interworking set of objects".
Overview
A conceptual system is a conceptual model. Suc ...
* Phase space
In dynamical system theory, a phase space is a space in which all possible states of a system are represented, with each possible state corresponding to one unique point in the phase space. For mechanical systems, the phase space usual ...
* Physical phenomenon
A phenomenon ( : phenomena) is an observable event. The term came into its modern philosophical usage through Immanuel Kant, who contrasted it with the noumenon, which ''cannot'' be directly observed. Kant was heavily influenced by Gottfried W ...
* Physical ontology
In philosophy, physicalism is the metaphysical thesis that "everything is physical", that there is "nothing over and above" the physical, or that everything supervenes on the physical. Physicalism is a form of ontological monism—a "one substa ...
* Signal-flow graph
A signal-flow graph or signal-flowgraph (SFG), invented by Claude Shannon, but often called a Mason graph after Samuel Jefferson Mason who coined the term, is a specialized Flow graph (mathematics), flow graph, a directed graph in which nodes repr ...
* Systems Engineering
Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary field of engineering and engineering management that focuses on how to design, integrate, and manage complex systems over their life cycles. At its core, systems engineering utilizes systems thinking ...
* Systems Science
* Thermodynamic system
A thermodynamic system is a body of matter and/or radiation, confined in space by walls, with defined permeabilities, which separate it from its surroundings. The surroundings may include other thermodynamic systems, or physical systems that are ...
References
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