October 4, 2025

What Is The Difference Between Intensive And Extensive Properties

Q: Is color an intensive or extensive property?

Color is an intensive property. A small gold nugget and a large gold bar both have the same characteristic golden color because it's an inherent property of the substance, not its quantity.

Q: Can you get an intensive property from two extensive properties?

Yes. A common example is density. Density is an intensive property, but it is calculated by dividing mass (extensive) by volume (extensive). The ratio of two extensive properties often results in an intensive property.

Q: Is pressure an intensive or extensive property?

Pressure is an intensive property. The pressure of a gas inside a sealed container is uniform throughout and does not change if you consider only half of the container's volume.

Q: What about energy? Is it intensive or extensive?

Energy, such as thermal energy or kinetic energy, is an extensive property because it depends on the total mass and motion of the particles in a system. A larger object at the same temperature contains more thermal energy than a smaller one.

Learn the key distinction between intensive and extensive properties in chemistry and physics. Understand which properties depend on the amount of matter and which do not.

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Defining Intensive vs. Extensive Properties

The fundamental difference lies in their dependence on the amount of matter. An extensive property is a physical property that changes when the size of the sample changes. In contrast, an intensive property is a property that does not depend on the amount of the substance present.

Section 2: Key Characteristics

Extensive properties, such as mass, volume, and length, are additive and scale with the quantity of material. If you double the amount of a substance, its mass and volume also double. Intensive properties, like temperature, density, and color, are inherent to the substance itself and remain constant regardless of the sample size.

Section 3: A Practical Example

Consider a swimming pool filled with water. The total mass and volume of the water are extensive properties; they are very large. If you take a cup of water from the pool, its mass and volume will be much smaller. However, the temperature and density (an intensive property) of the water in the cup will be exactly the same as the temperature and density of the water in the entire pool.

Section 4: Importance in Science

This distinction is crucial for identifying substances and performing calculations in thermodynamics and material science. Intensive properties are used to identify and characterize a substance (e.g., gold's density is always 19.3 g/cm³), while extensive properties describe how much of that substance you have.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is color an intensive or extensive property?

Can you get an intensive property from two extensive properties?

Is pressure an intensive or extensive property?

What about energy? Is it intensive or extensive?