As explained by Gibbs and appreciated by Maxwell, the advantage of a U-V-S (energy-volume-entropy) surface over the usual P-V-T (pressure-volume-temperature) surface was that it allowed to geometrically explain sharp, discontinuous phase transitions as emerging from a purely continuous and smooth state function U ( V , S ) ; Maxwell's surface demonstrated the generic behaviour for a substance that can exist in solid, liquid, and gaseous phases. The basic geometrical operation involved simply placing a tangent plane (such as a flat sheet of glass) on the surface and rolling it around, observing where it touches the surface. Using this operation, it was possible to explain phase coexistence, the triple point, to identify the boundary between absolutely stable and metastable phases (e.g., superheating and supercooling), the spinodal boundary between metastable and unstable phases, and to illustrate the critical point.