Gibbs Phase Rule Calculator

Water's triple point has zero degrees of freedom, which is what made it a definition of the kelvin.

Clear
Degrees of freedom0invariant — nothing can be adjusted
Components1
Phases3
Maximum phases at equilibrium3where the degrees of freedom fall to zero
Phases for one degree of freedom2a line on the phase diagram rather than a point
Zero degrees of freedom means a single fixed point: one temperature, one pressure, no adjustment possible. Water's triple point is exactly this case, which is why it served as the definition of the kelvin from 1954 to 2019.

The formula

F = C - P + 2

What the rule counts

F is the number of intensive variables — temperature, pressure, compositions — you may set independently before the state of the system is fully determined. C is the number of chemically independent components and P the number of phases in equilibrium. The 2 is temperature and pressure.

The triple point is forced

Pure water has one component. Put ice, liquid and vapour in equilibrium and P is three, so F is zero: there is exactly one temperature and one pressure at which this can happen, and neither can be adjusted. That is what makes a triple point a reproducible fixed point, and it is why the kelvin was defined by water's triple point from 1954 until the SI redefinition of 2019.

A negative answer means it cannot happen

Four phases of a one-component system would give F equal to minus one, which is not a state of affairs but a contradiction. The rule is therefore also a test: if it returns a negative number, the arrangement you described does not exist.

Where these models stop

Michaelis-Menten assumes a single substrate and a steady state; Langmuir assumes one layer on identical sites with no interaction between them; Stokes-Einstein assumes a hard sphere much larger than the solvent molecules around it. Each is an idealisation that happens to describe real systems well over a useful range, and each fails predictably outside it. Knowing which assumption a number rests on is usually more valuable than the number.