statefunctions
nounUK /ˈsteɪt ˈfʌŋkʃənz/
US /ˈsteɪt ˈfʌŋkʃənz/
State functions are special things in science that only care about where you start and where you end, not the path you take.
Temperature and pressure are state functions because they depend only on the current condition of the system.
RELATED WORDS
OTHER MEANINGS
2. In mathematics, functions that describe the condition of a system at a given time.
The engineer used state functions to model how the machine changes over time.
3. In computing, functions that keep track of and update the current status of a program.
The app's state functions remember whether the user is logged in.
4. In physics, quantities like energy that depend only on the present state of a system.
Internal energy is a state function, so its change depends only on the beginning and end states.