Talk:Phase space

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Work in Progress - to make Phase Space the main article on the (p, q) space of dynamical systems, and Phase diagram mainly on the physical chemistry uses of that term Linuxlad 23:48, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Speaking of that, it looks like someone erroneously linked the English article on Phase Space with the French article on Phase Diagrams... Ed Sanville 18:56, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] quantization

The statement on quantisation needs a tidy - it's the product p.q which has the dimensions of action surely. (so from memory, dp.dq = h) Bob aka Linuxlad

Done. Howeever, I was sloppy with the links, some may be disambig pages. I have to run ... linas 16:24, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Now, the statement on quantisation is better: no one will understand, who not already knows! It's a pity! ErNa 07:48, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] State Space

Isn't "Phase space" = "State space"? They both are the space of all possible states, aren't they? --Javalenok 19:48, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

No, "state space" is a synonym for Configuration space, which is a related but different concept. -- Four Dog Night 02:48, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

for a classical system with N particles, each point in the 3N + 3N dimensional phase space is a possible configuration of the system. in statistical mechanics, a "state" is then a probability distribution (in mathematical terms, a probability measure) on the phase space. so the state space is the family of probability distributions. for example, the microcanonical ensemble is a state; it corresponds to the distribution that is constant everywhere on some constant-enery surface of the phase space. Mct mht 04:47, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

... and zero everywhere else. Ed Sanville 10:29, 25 August 2006 (UTC)