as a step. The work done by the system on its surroundings is calculated from the quantities that constitute the whole cycle. A different cycle would be needed to actually measure the work done by the surroundings on the system. This is a reminder that rubbing the surface of a system appears to the rubbing agent in the surroundings as mechanical, though not thermodynamic, work done on the system, not as heat, but appears to the system as heat transferred to the system, not as thermodynamic work. The production of heat by rubbing is irreversible; historically, it was a piece of evidence for the rejection of the caloric theory of heat as a conserved substance. The irreversible process known as Joule heating also occurs through a change of a non-deformation extensive state variable. Accordingly, in the opinion of Lavenda, work is not as primitive concept as is heat, which can be measured by calorimetry. This opinion does not negate the now customary thermodynamic definition of heat in terms of adiabatic work. Known as a thermodynamic operation, the initiating factor of a thermodynamic process is, in many cases, a change in the permeability of a wall between the system and the surroundings. Rubbing is not a change in wall permeability. Kelvin's statement of the second law of thermodynamics uses the notion of an "inanimate material agency"; this notion is sometimes regarded as puzzling. The triggering of a process of rubbing can occur only in the surroundings, not in a thermodynamic system in its own state of internal thermodynamic equilibrium. Such triggering may be described as a thermodynamic operation. Formal definition In thermodynamics, the quantity of work done by a closed system on its surroundings is defined by factors strictly confined to the interface of the surroundings with the system and to the surroundings of the system, for example, an extended gravitational field in which the system sits, that is to say, to things external to the system. A main concern of thermodynamics is the properties of materials. Thermodynamic work is defined for the purposes of thermodynamic calculations about bodies of material, known as thermodynamic systems. Consequently, thermodynamic work is defined in terms of quantities that describe the states of materials, which appear as the usual thermodynamic state variables, such as volume, pressure, temperature, chemical composition, and electric polarization. For example, to measure the pressure inside a system from outside it, the