Physics 305: Statistical Mechanics and Thermodynamics

Course Description
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Syllabus

Part I: Thermodynamics

1.      Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics
           temperature
           heat

2.      The First Law of Thermodynamics
           internal energy

3.      The Second Law of thermodynamics
           heat engine
           Carnot cycle
           Carnot's theorem
           entropy
           reversible and irreversible change of state,
           Maxwell's demon

4.      Thermodynamic Functions
           the central equation of thermodynamics
           energy, enthalpy
           Helmholtz free energy
           Gibbs free energy
           the Clausius-Clapeyron equation
           the Joul-Thomson effect

Part II: Statistical Mechanics

5.      General Treatment of Localized Assembly
            a specific example
            counting states
            a binary model system
            Lagrange's method of undetermined multipliers
            two assemblies that can share energy

6.      Statistical Interpretation of Entropy
            the Boltzmann factor
            the partition function

7.      Idea Gas: a First Look
           states of a particle in a box
           partition function for N particles in a box
           entropy of mixing

8.      Blackbody Radiation
           photons
           Planck distribution function

9.      Phonons in Solids: Debye Theory

10.    Chemical Potential
           diffusive equilibrium
           chemical work
           internal and total chemical potential
           batteries

11.    Gibbs Factor and Gibbs Sum

12.    Ideal Gas: a Second Look
           Fermi-Dirac, Bose-Einstein, and Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution functions
           internal degrees of freedom

13.    Fermi Gases
           density of states
           electrons in metals

14.    Bose Gases
           Bose-Einstein condensation