Physical property

Physical property
A physical property is any property that is measurable, involved in the physical system, intensity on the object's state and behavior. The changes in the physical properties of a system can be used to describe its changes between momentary states. A quantifiable physical property is called physical quantity. Measurable physical quantities are often referred to as observables.
Some physical properties are qualitative, such as shininess, brittleness, etc.; some general qualitative properties admit more specific related quantitative properties, such as in opacity, hardness, ductility,viscosity, etc.
Physical properties are often characterized as intensive and extensive properties. An intensive property does not depend on the size or extent of the system, nor on the amount of matter in the object, while an extensive property shows an additive relationship. These classifications are in general only valid in cases when smaller subdivisions of the sample do not interact in some physical or chemical process when combined.
Properties may also be classified with respect to the directionality of their nature. For example, isotropic properties do not change with the direction of observation, and anisotropic properties do have spatial variance.
It may be difficult to determine whether a given property is a material property or not. Color, for example, can be seen and measured; however, what one perceives as color is really an interpretation of the reflective properties of a surface and the light used to illuminate it. In this sense, many ostensibly physical properties are called supervenient. A supervenient property is one which is actual, but is secondary to some underlying reality. This is similar to the way in which objects are supervenient on atomic structure. A cup might have the physical properties of mass, shape, color, temperature, etc., but these properties are supervenient on the underlying atomic structure, which may in turn be supervenient on an underlying quantum structure.
Physical properties are contrasted with chemical properties which determine the way a material behaves in a chemical reaction.
List of properties
The physical properties of an object that are traditionally defined by classical mechanics are often called mechanical properties. Other broad categories, commonly cited, are electrical properties, optical properties, thermal properties, etc. Examples of physical properties include:
absorption (physical)
absorption (electromagnetic)
albedo
angular momentum
area
brittleness
boiling point
capacitance
color
concentration
density
dielectric
ductility
distribution
efficacy
elasticity
electric charge
electrical conductivity
electrical impedance
electric field
electric potential
emission
flow rate (mass)
flow rate (volume)
fluidity
frequency
hardness
heat capacity
inductance
intrinsic impedance
intensity
irradiance
length
location
luminance
luminescence
luster
malleability
magnetic field
magnetic flux
mass
melting point
moment
momentum
opacity
permeability
permittivity
plasticity
pressure
radiance
resistivity
reflectivity
refractive index
spin
solubility
specific heat
strength
stiffness
temperature
tension
thermal conductivity (and resistance)
velocity
viscosity
volume
wave impedance
See also
List of materials properties
Physical quantity
Physical test
Test method
References
Bibliography
External links
Physical and Chemical Property Data Sources – a list of references which cover several chemical and physical properties of various materials
Physical phenomena