The Surroundings (thermodynamics) reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Surroundings (thermodynamics)

In a thermodynamics problem, the surroundings, or environment, are anything not part of the system. They are separated from the system by a real or imaginary boundary. Together with the system, they make up the universe.

The surroundings do not contain any processes of interest. However, they can usually exchange energy and sometimes even matter with the system, influencing the processes that occur there.

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