Pattern Recognition and Alternative Physical Chemistry Methodologies

Abstract

Alternative formalisms for two different domains in physical chemistry are considered here: thermodynamics and chemical kinetics. In thermodynamics the performance of a diagrammatic method based on geometric and algebraic considerations is illustrated here. This method based on the particular symmetry of a thermodynamic diagram allows one to obtain the most important thermodynamic expressions of a simple system and to solve thermodynamic problems strictly related to these expressions. The different thermodynamic expressions can be developed with the application of various geometric patterns to the proposed diagram. Furthermore, the particular structure of this diagram allows one to develop a matrix formulation of the pattern formalism. The matrix formalism requires one to recast the thermodynamic parameters of the diagram into a vectorial form. The number of thermodynamic relations that can, thus, be “discovered” is enormous. In chemical kinetics, two new approaches for writing kinetic equations in matri...