section_path: Thermodynamic approach/Intensive variability
section_name: Intensive variability
paragraph_text: Intensive variability
  
  In thermodynamic terms, temperature is an intensive variable because it is equal to a differential coefficient of one extensive variable with respect to another, for a given body. It thus has the dimensions of a ratio of two extensive variables. In thermodynamics, two bodies are often considered as connected by contact with a common wall, which has some specific permeability properties. Such specific permeability can be referred to a specific intensive variable. An example is a diathermic wall that is permeable only to heat; the intensive variable for this case is temperature. When the two bodies have been connected through the specifically permeable wall for a very long time, and have settled to a permanent steady state, the relevant intensive variables are equal in the two bodies; for a diathermal wall, this statement is sometimes called the zeroth law of thermodynamics.
  
  In particular, when the body is described by stating its internal energy U, an extensive variable, as a function of its entropy S, also an extensive variable, and other state variables V, N, with U = U (S, V, N), then the temperature is equal to the partial derivative of the internal energy with respect to the entropy:
  
  Likewise, when the body is described by stating its entropy S as a function of its internal energy U, and other state variables V, N, with S = S (U, V, N), then the reciprocal of the temperature is equal to the partial derivative of the entropy with respect to the internal energy:
  
  The above definition, equation (1), of the absolute temperature, is due to Kelvin. It refers to systems closed to the transfer of matter and has a special emphasis on directly experimental procedures. A presentation of thermodynamics by Gibbs starts at a more abstract level and deals with systems open to the transfer of matter; in this development of thermodynamics, the equations (2) and (3) above are actually alternative definitions of temperature.