Gibbs and other scientists have wrestled with the arbitrariness in the exact microscopic placement of the surface. For microscopic surfaces with very tight curvatures, it is not correct to assume the surface tension is independent of size, and topics like the Tolman length come into play. For a macroscopic-sized surface (and planar surfaces), the surface placement does not have a significant effect on ; however, it does have a very strong effect on the values of the surface entropy, surface excess mass densities, and surface internal energy, which are the partial derivatives of the surface tension function .
Gibbs and other scientists have wrestled with the arbitrariness in the exact microscopic placement of the surface. For microscopic surfaces with very tight curvatures, it is not correct to assume the surface tension is independent of size, and topic.s like the Tolman length come into play For a macroscopic-sized surface (and planar surfaces), the surface placement does not have a significant effect on ; however, it does have a very strong effect on the values of the surface entropy, surface excess mass densities, and surface internal energy, which are the partial derivatives of the surface tension function .