Metastability

Metastability isability ofnon-equilibrium statepersist forlong periodtime. Usually metastabilitydue torelatively slow phase transformation. For example at room temperature diamondsmetastable becausephase transformation tostable graphite formextremely slow. At higher temperaturesratephase transformationincreased anddiamond will transformgraphite. The bonds betweenbuilding blockspolymers such as DNA, RNAproteinsalso metastable.

In electronics,flip-flop isdevice that suffers from metastability. It has two well-defined stable states, but under certain conditionscan hover between themlonger thannormal decision time.