How Does Surface Tension Relate to Maxwell Relations?

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Homework Statement



Discuss the variation of force of surface tension with the help of maxwell relations ?


Homework Equations





The Attempt at a Solution



It is a question from previous year question paper , my exams are going so i am asking for little help as i don't know how to connect the two as the books that i have don't mention it anywhere
 
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You can do this by writing the first law in differential form

dU=T\,dS-p\,dV+\mu\,dN

and adding a term for surface energy to let you set up Maxwell relations.
 
i am still not getting it ?
 
Surface tension adds an additional energy term \gamma\,dA where \gamma is the surface energy and A is the area.

Maxwell relations arise because the equation I wrote above is really

dU=\left(\frac{\partial U}{\partial S}\right)_{V,N,A}dS+\left(\frac{\partial U}{\partial V}\right)_{S,N,A}dV+\left(\frac{\partial U}{\partial N}\right)_{S,V,A}dN+\left(\frac{\partial U}{\partial A}\right)_{S,V,N}dA

and we've assigned the variables T, -p, \mu, and \gamma to the partial derivatives. Therefore

\left(\frac{\partial T}{\partial V}\right)=\left(\frac{\partial^2 U}{\partial S\,\partial V}\right)=\left(\frac{\partial^2 U}{\partial V\,\partial S}\right)=-\left(\frac{\partial p}{\partial S}\right)

You should be able to apply the same reasoning to differentials involving \gamma.
 
To solve this, I first used the units to work out that a= m* a/m, i.e. t=z/λ. This would allow you to determine the time duration within an interval section by section and then add this to the previous ones to obtain the age of the respective layer. However, this would require a constant thickness per year for each interval. However, since this is most likely not the case, my next consideration was that the age must be the integral of a 1/λ(z) function, which I cannot model.
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