Intrinsic and extrinsic properties

This article is not about the concepts of intrinsic and extrinsic properties in philosophy.

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In physics and chemistry an intrinsic property (or intensive property) of a system is a physical property of the system which does not depend on the system size or the amount of material in the system. By contrast, an extrinsic property (or extensive property) of a system does depend on the system size or the amount of material in the system. However, some of the intrinsic properties are statistical in nature (e.g. viscosity) and are relevant only in aggregate scales.

Examples of intrinsic properties include:

• temperature
• pressure
• viscosity
• density
• resitivity

Examples of extrinsic properties include:

• mass
• volume
• entropy
• energy