The movement of a system toward equilibrium will, under the proper circumstance, perform work on an external system.  Examples include economic expansion in one sector upon organizations throughout the society; similarly for new political, religious, and cultural ideologies.  Thermodynamic power, as a method of performing work on a system, is the consideration to which I turn in this section.

In order to keep the analysis simple and focused upon the essentials, I will idealize the description of the external systems upon which work is performed.  Since these external systems are simply the recipient of work, the idealization will not unduly affect the significance of the results.

I introduce the following useful types of systems.  The mathematical base for this is a direct analogy with physical thermodynamics.

Definition: An adiabatic barrier prevents the flow of heat flux.

Definition: A reversible work source is a system enclosed by an adiabatic and entity barrier characterized by relaxation times sufficiently short that all processes of interest within it are essentially quasi-static.

Since the relationship between quasi-static heat flux and entropy change can be represented by dQ = Tds, the adiabatic barrier insures a constant value of entropy.  When coupled to another system, a reversible work source acts as a quasi-static source or sink of work.

Definition: A reversible heat source is a system contained in a rigid entity relationship volume and characterized by relaxation times sufficiently short that all processes of interest within it are essentially quasi-static.

The only possible flux of energy to or from a reversible heat source is in the form of heat, so that dU = dQ = TdS.  The reversible heat source acts as a quasi-static source or sink of heat.

Definition: A reservoir is a very large reversible work or heat source.

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