microstate

From micro- + state.

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microstate (plural microstates)

1. A country that has a very small population and land area.
2. (physics) The specific detailed microscopic configuration of a system.
   • 1989, H. E. Avery, D. John Shaw, Physical Chemistry, page 33:

     However, the number of microstates in which the excess of molecules in one bulb over the number in the other bulb is sufficient to permit the measurement of a pressure difference is a quite discountably small fraction of the total number of microstates.

• (physics): macrostate

• microstate continuum

• tetrasomic