Foundations & What Physical Chemistry Is

intensive property

Stir a pot of soup and taste it. One spoonful tells you how salty the whole pot is, even though the spoon holds a tiny fraction of the soup. Saltiness — like temperature, pressure, and density — is an intensive property: it does not depend on how much you have. A single drop and the entire pot are equally salty.

Formally, an intensive property has the same value in any part of a uniform system, no matter the amount. Temperature, pressure, density, concentration, and the boiling point of a pure substance are all intensive. Cut a uniform block of metal in half and each half has the same density and the same temperature as the whole.

Intensive properties are precious because they describe the nature of a material rather than the size of your sample, so they let you compare substances fairly. Many of the most useful quantities in physical chemistry are intensive precisely so they can serve as fingerprints — a pure substance always boils at its own characteristic temperature, whatever the quantity.

Pure water boils at 100 °C whether you heat a teaspoonful or a kettle full; the boiling temperature is intensive, while the heat you must supply to boil it all is extensive.

Intensive properties describe the material itself; the amount does not change them.

A quick test: imagine cutting the system in half. Properties that stay the same (temperature, density) are intensive; properties that halve (mass, volume) are extensive.

Also called
intensive quantity强度性质内涵量