Introduction and First Basic Concepts

Abstract

In this first chapter, we will be introduced briefly to the field of matter dynamics. This field is concerned in the most general sense with the transformations of substances and the physical principles underlying the changes of matter. As a consequence, we have to review some important basic concepts necessary for describing such processes like substance, content formula and amount of substance, as well as homogeneous and heterogeneous mixture and the corresponding measures of composition. But in this context, the physical state of a sample is also of great importance. Therefore, we will learn how we can characterize it qualitatively by the different states of aggregation as well as quantitatively by state variables. In the last section, a classification of transformations of substances into chemical reactions, phase transitions, and redistribution processes as well as their description with the help of conversion formulas is given. The temporal course of such a transformation can be expressed by the extent of conversion ξ. Additionally, we will take a short look at the basic problem of measuring quantities and metricizing concepts in this chapter.