MICROSCOPIC REVERSIBILITY, PRINCIPLE OF

principle formulated about 1924 by the American scientist Richard C. Tolman that provides a dynamic description of an equilibrium condition. Equilibrium is a state in which no net change in some given property of a physical system is observable; e.g., in a chemical reaction, no change takes place in the concentrations of reactants and products, although the Dutch chemist J.H. van't Hoff had already recognized that this condition results from the equality of the forward and backward rates of a reversible reaction. According to the principle of microscopic reversibility, at equilibrium there is continuous activity on a microscopic (i.e., atomic or molecular) level, although on a macroscopic (observable) scale the system may be considered as standing still. There is no net change favouring any one direction, because whatever is being done is being undone at the same rate. Thus, for a chemical reaction at equilibrium, the amount of reactants being converted to products per unit time is exactly matched by the amount being converted to reactants (from products) per unit time. The principle of microscopic reversibility, when applied to a chemical reaction that proceeds in several steps, is known as the principle of detailed balancing. Basically, it states that at equilibrium each individual reaction occurs in such a way that the forward and reverse rates are equal.