= Continuous phase transition
At a continuous phase transition, the equilibrium phases meet without a discontinuous change in a first derivative of the appropriate <thermodynamic potential>. A thermal continuous transition therefore has no <latent heat>, although <heat capacity> or another response can be singular.
An ordinary critical transition develops fluctuations over an increasingly large <correlation length>. For magnetic ordering, the <magnetization> can emerge continuously while the <magnetic susceptibility> grows sharply. <Critical exponents> describe these changes, and <universality> explains why microscopically different systems can share them. Finite size, finite measurement time and imperfect tuning round the ideal singularity. The description must distinguish such critical behavior from a weakly first-order transition whose small discontinuity happens to be unresolved.
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